Super Human
by R.Obliv
Summary: Things are changing. Spider-man's team has increased in size, Fury is acting behind even S.H.E.I.L.D. and a threat is making plans that will alter the world as Peter knows it. To top it all off he is about to enter a new year of school. Well, at least the cafeteria menu is the same. Action adventure which may feature some Ava x Peter. Contains mild language.
1. Chapter 1: A new day

Peter woke with a start as the alarm blared around his room and he tapped around his bedside table, his eyes too groggy to see anything, until he felt his alarm clock. Turning it off, he moved out of his bed as quickly as possible so to ensure he didn't fall back to sleep again once the sound had faded. Yawning, he switched on a desk lamp and let his eyes adjust to the light then quietly moved around his room, getting his clothes ready.

It was the first time in a while he had gotten up so early, but summer vacation was almost over and he needed to get readjusted to an early start. He wondered if Sam would be doing the opposite, sleeping in as long as possible to celebrate his 'last day of freedom,' as he put it. He glanced at the clock, 05:00.

Aunt May would normally wake up at around 7:00, so he had an hour and a half to patrol the city. Putting on his costume he quietly slid his window open, had a look around outside, and then leapt on to the road, closing his window with a web behind him. He paused for a moment so to take a breath, before he jumped with all his might, quickly moving from block to block until the buildings began to grow to the appropriate size. Once he was able to, he shot a web and began to swing from building to building.

Web-swinging was truly a rush, feeling the wind push against him, his momentum launch him to new heights, and that wonderfully uncomfortable feeling of his stomach churning as he let go of the web. He wouldn't trade it for any other power (although it was technically not a power).

He jumped to the wall of the Fisk building and stuck to it so to look around, absorbing the sights and sounds of the city, he could see the sun begin to rise from behind the buildings, shards of light piercing through gaps between the buildings. He could see a troop of taxis moving towards the airport, pedestrians beginning to conjugate on the sidewalk and…

He sighed. Of course, there is always one.

Spider-man slid down the building, silently moving towards an alley way in the distance, and shot a web at the nearest lamppost, landing on it and lurking above the mugger. He began to lower himself down and delicately touched the floor, so not to make a sound. He sneaked behind the man, looking at the knife and, in a sudden movement, disarmed him.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with knives, they're very dangerous." He smiled, taking enjoyment in the look of horror as the man realised who he was.

"S-spider-man!" He yelled, hands shaking. The man gulped and began to run, but Spider-man shot a web at his feet, causing him to trip. He shot a few more webs at the man to keep him down then turned to look at the victim, a 60 or so year old man, who gave him a small smile. He seemed lean and was wearing a long coat and hat, masking his figure somewhat. Despite the mugging he looked completely calm.

"Are you alright, sir?" He asked, looking to check he wasn't injured. He released a sigh of relief when he saw that the worst thing that happened was that his collar was ruffled.

"Perfectly fine, thank you." He smiled cheerfully; he then turned and looked at the mugger, who was trying to crawl away. Spider-man saw a look of detest in his eyes. "You'll be taking him to the police, no doubt."

"Yep, and, err, thanks." Spider-man replied. "I don't usually get gratitude; people seem to think I'm trying to remove the competition… or whatever Jameson is saying that day."

"I pride myself on the ability to see through slander. Do not worry, it will soon leave you." The old man affirmed, and he began to walk further down the alley.

"Wait, before you go, it may be a good idea to sit down and get your bearings, there's a Starbucks a few blocks from here in that way." Spider-man advised, pointing in the general direction.

"Thank you for your concern, but I am fine. Anyway, I don't do coffee. It was nice to talk to you Spider-man, I do hope we meet again." And with that the old man left, humming to himself. Spider-man was impressed, he had never seen someone shrug of a mugging like that; the guy barely looked shaken at all.

Grabbing the mugger, he swung over to the nearest police station, leaving the man tied up outside the front door with a note explaining what had happened. As he began to leave he checked the time function on his web shooters, confirming he had at least another 45 minutes left. Smiling, he took note of his surroundings and began to run, leaping as he approached a junction and shooting a web, using the momentum to swing up to where he wanted to be.

Grinning he continued to patrol the city.

* * *

Peter got back with 15 minutes to go, and took advantage of the time to hide his costume and jump back into bed. As he laid there he thought about the past year, it had been a tough one, what with him getting his own rouge gallery and everything, but things were getting better. He and Harry's friendship was returning to the state it was before he had become Spider-man, and his new team were some of the best friends he had ever had. Hell, even Flash had stopped bullying him, and has finally begun to grow up.

He turned on his side and heard his Aunt call for him "I thought you wanted to get up early."

He yelled gratitude, and got up and dressed, this time as Peter Parker, not Spider-man.

"You're sure you're alright with me going deep sea diving today, it'll mean you have to get something yourself for dinner." She asked as he walked into the kitchen.

"I'll probably be out all day with my friends, so I'll get something while we're out." He replied, grabbing some bread and putting it in the toaster.

"Sam and the lot or Harry and Mary Jane?" She queried, passing him the jam.

"Sam, I saw MJ and Harry yesterday." He answered; there was a pause as he spread the jam on the toast, however just as he went to take a bite she continued.

"Why is it you don't all meet up together?" She said, sounding somewhat confused. "Do they not like one another?"

"We all went out together the other week, it's just… I dunno." He lied; the reason was, of course, that the team normally met up for training or patrols, so it was hard to get everyone together. He would have liked to hang out a bit more altogether, but in the end that time could be better used.

"Ok, just don't take your friends for granted, I noticed you didn't see MJ and Harry as much as last summer." She lectured. Peter nodded, and began to eat.

* * *

"Hey Peter," Luke yelled as Peter approached the group at Times Square, he had thought about getting there early by using his web shooters, but decided to catch the bus for once.

"You're last again." Sam smiled, treating arriving earlier as a personal triumph.

"I was technically here at six." Peter chuckled looking down at his watch, at least he was on time this time.

"Patrols don't count." Ava replied. "Anything happen this morning?"

"A mugging and a carjacking, so pretty light compared to last Friday." He answered, causing everyone to shudder at the memory of that patrol.

"Please don't mention that again…" Sam gulped, looking uncomfortable.

"Don't worry, I won't." Peter chuckled, hoping to forget it himself. "So what is Fury planning?"

"He won't tell us," Danny sighed "he just told us to be in the Tricarrier at 6."

"That gives us 4 hours, so let's go get something to eat, I'm starved." Sam whined, his stomach growling.

"Maybe you should have gotten up for breakfast." Ava muttered under her breath.

* * *

"Wait, so Fury kicked you out until 6?" Peter frowned; he had assumed they had gne out of their own accord. "Why, that seems like a major hassle."

"I dunno, maybe whatever it is we will be talking about needs to be prepared or something." Luke replied, taking a bite of pizza.

"Maybe it's a new addition to the Tricarrier or something, making a, err… Quatrocarrier?" Sam thought aload, "Or a motor bike."

"You mean Tetracarrier, and anyway that is way too much, they'd need to take the whole thing apart, and the second idea seems too small." Ava answered, looking around for her order.

"Perhaps Fury wishes to introduce a new ally." Danny pondered, causing everyone else to stop.

"…That could work. If we have a newbie maybe Fury wants to get them acclimatized to the whole S.H.E.I.L.D. thing first." Peter nodded.

"Well, we better not jump to conclusions, but a new team mate would be cool, look at how well our last one turned out." Luke smiled, nudging Peter, however after a moment his face changed into a frown. "Although it could be bad if their inexperienced, I mean with how things have been recently..."

"Yeah, we were lucky really that no one like Goblin turned up on our first day, otherwise it could have ended badly, and it would be worse for someone with who had no training. At least you had already been a solo super-hero for a year before joining, Peter." Ava observed, the mood lowering amongst the group.

"Well… We did fight Dr Doom quite early on." Peter said trying to be the optimist, "And we survived that. I think Goblin still doesn't come close to him on S.H.E.I.L.D.'s most wanted list."

"Yeah but Doom wasn't targeting us directly." Sam frowned.

"We will just have to keep a close eye on our new ally, if, of course, we have one." Danny assured, and with that everyone nodded in agreement.

"So," Peter announced, changing the subject ,"Did you do the summer assignment Sam?"

"What!?" Sam shrieked in horror "There was homework?"

Luke leaned over to Peter "Was there a summer assignment?" He whispered.

"No, but I think we can let Sam believe." Peter replied with a smile.

* * *

They walked around New York to kill time before they had to leave to go to the Tricarrier, ending it by sitting in central park and venting their annoyance about going back to school, even Ava let in a small complaint. But the time to go had finally arrived and they suited up, headed to the detention room in Midtown high and in a flash they were there.

"Well, that's the new Tetracarrier idea shot down." Sam sighed, glancing outside one of the windows. They walked down the corridor towards the briefing room, passing a couple S.H.E.I.L.D. agents along the way, who almost walked through them and caused the team to press up against the wall.

"T-that was a mutual break up, me and MJ thought it was too weird." Spider-man stuttered, "And I know that that one girlfriend was more than the number you've ha-"

"Are you treating the number of girls you've dated as a competition?" White Tiger smiled maliciously, and Both Nova and Spider-man felt a chill.

"N-no, of course not!" They replied in chorus.

"Good." She replied, and at that moment the two breathed a sigh of relief that they weren't kicked out one of the windows to a watery death.

"We're here," said Iron Fist, who had watched the proceedings with barely contained amusement.

"Better straighten your helmet a bit more, Nova." Power-man smiled, and they opened the door.

* * *

They entered the room and looked around, their eyes first being drawn to Nick Fury, then to the fact that 5 other people were sitting in new chairs, and seemed to all be in costume. They looked up at the team, some smiled, others nodded and one in a cloak simply looked back down.

"Good, you're here on time. These are your new team mates." Fury announced. The team continued to look. This meant the group had doubled. That number may be harder to deal with than six, Spider-man thought to himself.

After a moment Power-man spoke up, "Um, this is a bit more than… sorry, who are you guys?"

The tall blond haired boy next to Fury looked dejected and as Fury went to introduce them he cut in, "You don't recognise me?" Spider-man thought he had seen him before and as he looked more closely he realised who he was. He gulped then tried to shrink behind Luke but was too late, "Oh, Spidey? You're part of this team?" The boy smiled.

"H-hey Johnny…" He muttered.

"Looks like you got into something after all. Sorry about us not letting you in the Fantastic Four back then." He smiled, causing the group to look at him. "But we are the Fantastic FOUR, plus you kind of sucked back then."

"Wait, YOU tried to join another group before us? You, the guy who complains about not having enough 'me time?'" White Tiger interrogated.

"W-well I was just starting out and thought that- Wait, why are you joining this team anyway?" Spider-man asked, changing the subject.

"Ugh, Reed and Sue are off in space for a few months so the team is on hiatus, the Thing is joining the Avengers 'til then as well." Johnny complained. "But don't worry; I'll happily lead you guys."

Fury cleared his throat, "Well, it seems Johnny has introduced himself, you may sit back down, I guess the rest should introduce themselves now as well?" He glared at Johnny as he did as he was told. "Right then, you can start Veil."

A girl farthest from Fury stood up with a start. She had short red hair and seemed to be wearing a black mummy costume. "Me?" she asked worried, Fury nodded, "(why did I have to go straight after Johnny storm) Hi, I'm Madeline, call me Maddy, and, err, what should I talk about?" She was holding her arm and looking for a bit of help from someone.

"Perhaps your powers and who you are." Danny proposed, and she nodded.

"Right, well I can turn into gas, any naturally occurring one anyway, I'm 15 and I'm from Pennsylvania so I'm quite used to this kind of climate."

"So did you move down here with your parents or…?" White Tiger asked.

"Oh, I'm staying on the Tricarrier, my parents aren't able to transfer at the moment, plus they wanted to see how this pans out." She replied quickly.

During this time Spider-man was pondering what she first said. "Hey, Maddy was it, when you say any naturally occurring gas, would that include Chlorine gas?" She stopped dead and clutched her arm tighter.

"Yes." She nodded sadly, "But I don't plan on ever doing that."

"It's no problem, like everyone knows, I can burst into flames and that is probably just as bad." Johnny Storm smiled, causing her to calm down a bit. "We introduced ourselves to one another earlier, in case you were wondering."

"Umm, that's all." Veil finished, sitting down.

"Right then, Iceman, how about you next?" Fury asked.

"Ok," A slightly short boy with very short brown hair nodded, choosing not to stand, he was wearing a costume similar to Jonny's. "I'm Bobby Drake, also 15, and I better mention, before you guys found out some other way, I'm a mutant. Sorry." There was a short pause and Bobby seemed to coil inwards.

Spider-man remembered about how a few years ago Mutants had become a symbol of hate for a lot of people, and there was almost bills passed to limit their freedom, however as they came close to being passed the Avengers happened, which drew some focus from the mutants and caused the bills to be dropped for a while. But eventually they began to re-emerge motivating a powerful mutant to almost take over the world in retaliation, with his main objective being mutant supremacy. He almost succeeded too, if not for the X-men. However most of them died fighting.

Captain America saw the bills were gaining support, yet the Avengers and other super-humans were just as popular as ever he spoke about the hypocrisy of it all, how people could hate one group and like another just because of how they got their powers. After that the hate dropped to a murmur and the bills were torn up. However the apprehension was still there and most mutants were scared of being recognised and hated. It should never have been a problem in the first place, he thought to himself.

"Sorry about what?" Power-man asked, "Chill man, so what are your powers?"

Bobby breathed a sigh of relief, and then in the blink of an eye turned to ice, costume and all. "I can make ice of any shape I wish and change my own body into this state. Pretty 'cool' huh?" There was a groan of pain from that pun.

"Hey, bad jokes are my thing!" Spider-man yelled. There was a small chuckle and the mood lifted for a moment.

"Well, I was a part of the X-men for a bit, but never went on any missions before they disbanded. Other than that I haven't got too much more to say." Bobby finished, returning to a normal state.

After that the last two, a cute girl in a white outfit and the cloaked boy, stood up simultaneously before Fury could speak they introduced themselves. "I'm Dagger, this is Cloak." She said cheerfully, "forgive his lack of creativity in the naming department; he wasn't really into the whole naming thing." Cloak, who had been looking at the floor until he was mentioned, looked around at everyone then went to sit. "Cloak, it's your turn to talk now."

"Hello," He whispered "I'm Tyrone." To which there was a jab to the rib from Dagger.

"Come one, speak up. They're not going to bite." She encouraged and he repeated himself, his voice now audible. "And I'm Tandy, hope we can all get along."

"So what are your powers?" Nova asked, looking transfixed.

"Oh, yeah, forgot about that. Well I can create daggers of light and Ty can pull people into a horrible shadow domain for a while and he can also teleport." She answered, and Nova felt that maybe hitting on her may not be the best idea; he didn't like being stabbed or risking being pulled into that shadow dimension by a possible boyfriend.

"So how long have you two been acquainted?" Danny asked.

"A few months now. We knew each other even before we had our powers, so once we got them we decided to become a crime fighting duo." She informed with great enthusiasm which seemed to make Cloak incredibly embarrassed. With nothing else left to say she sat down and Cloak quickly followed.

"Is that everything?" Fury asked, the team thought for a moment but really didn't have many questions at the moment. "Well then introduce yourselves and get ready for today's mission."

* * *

Damn Fury, Spider-man thought as he perched atop a gargoyle, what was he planning. The new members seemed just as surprised as he was about the mission, that Veil girl looked like she was about to have a heart attack and Iceman froze his armrest in shock. He looked down; fortunately most of them were positioned where he had told them to go, although there was no sign of Johnny Storm.

"What do you think?" Ava asked, standing behind him, focusing on the bank in question.

"About the new guys or the mission?" He replied.

"Both."

"They seem like nice people, not a huge fan of some of their powers though."

"Veil and Cloak?"

"Yeah, maybe Johnny too. Someone whose entire thing is that they are on fire means I feel I have to be cautious about what he's doing. If he was less experienced I would have been worried about having him around fill stop."

"The Human Torch should be fine, he's been doing this longer than any of us. Even Cloak seems ok, Dagger said he doesn't use that shadow dimension thing anymore she just mentioned it because she didn't like the way Nova was looking at her. Veil is the one I'm really worried about though, I spoke to her on the way, and she has no experience."

"None?"

"Nope, at least Iceman had some in the… err… Holodeck thing in his school."

"I'm guessing that's where ours comes from."

"I thought that S.H.E.I.L.D. designed it themselves."

"They never said that, that's how Fury works, he lets you make the assumptions."

"So about the mission."

"Ugh, some guy who swam through a fishnet is robbing banks we need to stop him. Guess Fury at least gave the new kids an easy start."

White Tiger chuckled at the comment. "That costume was terrible, and to think it was an improvement on the last."

"Well, with a name like Shocker…"

"I know right, I think that is the worst one yet."

They laughed for a few moments before there was a clearing of a throat behind them, causing Spider-man to jump, slipping off the gargoyle and barely grabbing it again in time before he fell.

"Sorry if I bothered you," Cloak muttered quietly "But Dagger saw a car that fits the description coming this way and she thinks they're here."

"R-right, err, how'd you get up here so fast?" Spider-man asked while taking White Tiger's outstretched hand.

"Teleportation," He replied simply, waiting for further instruction.

"Oh yeah, forgot that." There was another awkward pause as he thought. "Ok, so tell Veil and Nova to go in via the roof or one of the upper rooms and get Iron Fist and Power-man up to speed." Spider-man ordered, to which Cloak simply nodded. "When we give the signal you and Dagger… enter and the rest of us will come in through all possible ground floor entrances." At the conclusion of this Cloak vanished once again catching Spider-man off guard, although this time White Tiger grabbed him before he fell.

"I get the impression that is going to get real annoying." She summarized and Spider-man nodded.

* * *

Danny and Luke had kept in the corner, wearing long clothes atop their costumes and using a baseball cap to cover their masks. They had explained that they wanted to see the manager, who was of course very busy and would take some time to see them about their complaints about the ATM ripping them off, so they had to wait. This allowed them to watch what was going on without being approached by security.

They had an earpiece on so to be warned when Shocker would arrive. "It's still silent." Luke sighed, getting butterflies from the anticipation.

"Maybe we should check everything is ok." Suggested Danny, who was watching a man enter the bank, touch the front wall a few times then leave. He nodded to Luke and edged closer to the spot, looking to see a small toy. He picked it up and turned it over, 'the king's prize' written on the bottom, he carefully brought it to Luke. "Was this what Fury said was at every scene?"

Luke looked at the toy and nodded. "Yep, this is it." He paused staring at it. "So this is his calling card then? It's a weird choice, fat man in a suit, not very well made either seeing how half of it is purple." He carefully snapped it open, finding it was hollow, and let out a sigh of relief. He pressed his earpiece "Power-man in, a man just exited the bank, definitely related to the Shocker, so we can confirm Fury's suspicions."

"So that's that sorted, Shocker should be here soon" Danny concluded, leaning against the wall once more. "Hey, I feel like watching a few Bruce Lee movies later, you in?"

"Dude, we just watched a marathon of Kung fu movies yesterday, I really need a break from them."

"No problem, I was just feeling nostalgic." He sighed.

There was a pause as they stood together. "How many months left?" Luke asked, a hint of worry in his voice.

"6." Danny replied as they stared at the door way.

There was a crackle over the earpiece "Hi guys, this is Dagger, he's coming so get ready."

They nodded and moved towards either side of the main door, ready to ambush him once he came in. There was suddenly a return of the crackle "Disregard Spider-man's layout, their car isn't stopping!" She yelled and they realised just in time what she meant, jumping from the wall as it smashed inwards and the van barged through the door.

* * *

The van was reinforced and seemed to have taken minimal damage; a couple security guards ran forwards and pulled out their side arms, barking orders for the people inside to get out. There was a pause and the passenger door opened, a man exited in a yellow and brown costume with a net like pattern, wearing two gauntlets.

"Officers, it may be best for you to stand back." He smarmed and lifted his arms quickly, pressing a button on the gauntlets and blasting the two with a punch of air, sending them flying into a wall and knocking them out. He looked around and picked up a woman who had fallen to the ground in shock. "Sorry miss, but it seems that you'll be our hostage for this evening, but don't worry, as long as you do nothing stupid you should be fi-"

At this moment Iron Fist, who was only a few feet away punched him in the back, knocking him down to the ground. He twisted and flipped up, cracking his neck side to side as he stood there. "What is this? Junior super-heroes? Where the hell is Iron Man? Where the hell is my respect?" He took a stance making it looks as though he was about to fight back then made a signal with his hand and the van pulled forwards at Iron Fist, who jumped back to dodge it, however Shocker hit him in the chest with a well-placed blast of air. "Well, I was expecting an Avenger soon, but I guess I have to really earn my place."

He heard a step behind and twisted his arm, firing at Power-man, who had just gotten up as well. He was pushed back a few feet but not much. "That all you got?" Power-man smiled.

"Actually, no." Shocker taunted, firing again with a greater output and knocking Power-man off his feet. With Power-man down, he turned towards the van, "I don't pay you idiots to stand around, get the money!" He yelled and 3 men jumped out of it, then proceeded to run towards the withdraw desk, shouting for money. "One of you grab the green kid, he looks like a good hostage."

"Not on my watch!" Power-man growled and leapt, however Shocker hit him again in the chest, causing him to fall at his feet. He quickly stepped back before Power-man got up and they stared at one another. Power-man smiled and touched his earpiece, "Nova, he should be in the correct place." Shocker was confused by these words, and then he noticed the crack in the ceiling, growing larger.

Too late he tried to jump out of the way and a blast of energy hit his leg, knocking him down. He clutched at it and looked up. A small hole had formed in the ceiling, large enough for someone to enter from, and 2 other super-heroes stood up there. "How many of you brats are there?" He looked to the front door and saw even more coming. His exits were closed off. On top of the 4 already in the bank there was also White Tiger and Spider-man, who entered either side of the van, and Dagger who entered through the back and taken down his cronies with her powers.

Cloak suddenly appeared in front of him and Shocker fired at him in surprise, however despite hitting him square on the chest nothing happened. The cloak began to outstretch and Shocker could see nothing but darkness. Beneath his mask he grimaced and jumped back, this time firing at Cloak's face and had success, knocking him down.

"Cloak!" Dagger screamed, running towards him and leaving herself open, Shocker waited a moment before blasting, sending her body into Nova, who had just jumped down, and knocking the two out. He stood up, brushed himself off and looked around. His subordinates were down and there were still 3 heroes to deal with, and with how things had been going so far there was a high chance of the others getting up soon. He sighed. There was nothing for it then.

"Hey fishnets, give up now and we won't have to kick you to the police station." Spider-man taunted, stepping forwards.

"Funny." Shocker frowned, firing his gauntlets at him, but Spider-man leapt out of the way while simultaneously shot a web at them, jamming them. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Nope, we deal with second rate villains like you all the time, so just surrender quietly or we'll have to fight seriously." Spider-man advised a hint of threat in his voice.

"You raise an interesting point, and in reply." With that Shocker pulled a device out of a pouch around his waist. There was a moment of quiet, Veil had picked up Dagger and Nova was beginning to wake up, Cloak had stood to full size and was approaching Shocker, Power-man was supporting Iron Fist and White Tiger was helping evacuate the civilians. Spider-man's spider sense echoed in his head and he jumped towards Shocker, firing his web-shooters at the device. But too late and Shocker hammered his thumb down on a button.

The ceiling burst in in a fiery explosion, the sound was defining and caused Spider-man to recoil. Chunks of debris hit him in the head knocking him out and trapping him, the flames began to spread and Shocker grabbed a bag from one of his unconscious mooks, filled with bills, and ran. White Tiger went to grab him, but saw how the flames were spreading, and that most the team were unconscious or under rubble.

"Do you really have time to focus on me and not your team, girl?" Shocker smiled, and in the moment pause he blasted her with his gauntlets, having ripped the webbing mostly off.

At the same time Cloak, who had become intangible to avoid the falling debris, swiftly glided to the rubble Dagger was under. "Dagger! Dagger! Can you hear me!?" There was a muffled reply and he tried to pull it off her. "Help!" He snapped at Veil, who stood in shock.

"I… She was next to me and I…" She stuttered staring at the rubble.

"Veil," White Tiger shouted while getting herself up and grabbing at the rubble trapping Spider-man, "If you're able to, go after Shocker and use sleeping gas to take him out, it's better than just standing around."

"But I need to be in a confined space to do that." Veil said, still staring at the rubble, transfixed. "I shouldn't have turned into gas, I shouldn't have let go."

"What, and add another person to save. Since you can't help with taking out Shocker then move some rubble. Veil do something!" White Tiger yelled, pulling a particularly heavy chunk off of Spider-man, and pulling him out.

The order snapped Veil out of her state and she ran over to where Cloak was, pulling a bit of debris from above Dagger, finding her arm. Dagger moved it around and Cloak ran over, holding it, then the two pulled the surrounding rubble allowing them to pull her out.

"Good, now we just have to rescue everyone else." White Tiger gulped, and the three ran over to the closest pile. By this time the flames had spread further, blocking the entrance and getting closer to the trapped people. There was the sound of screams and crying from above. "There are people up there too?" She began to see the danger they were in.

Suddenly there was a crackle of rubble and Luke burst out of one of the piles of debris, holding Nova and Iron Fist in either arm, he looked around and saw the situation. With a worried frown he ran forwards, barely avoiding the tongues of the flames. "This is bad, I think Nova smacked his head and Iron Fist is bleeding."

"Dammit, how did he get a bomb up there?" White Tiger snarled. Her ribs were stinging from being smacked against the wall. There was a sound from her arms and Spider-man moved out of them, hitting the floor. She went to grab him but he raised a hand then got himself up.

Staggering, he looked around. "Where's Shocker?" He asked groggily.

"He got away." White Tiger replied, moving over to pick some rubble off one of the employees, helping him out. She felt dizzy, the smoke was getting to her. It was getting to all of them.

Spider-man touched his ear. "Iceman come in, did you see Shocker." He coughed

"Hey Spider-man, following the guy now, he's on foot and in the open, so should be an easy catch."

"Be careful he's tricky. Also can you help with the fire? Because we may be screwed here."

"Not really, heat screws with my powers, I'm sorry. I called a fire brigade when I saw the explosion."

"We may need some more immediate help. Focus on Shocker, but before I go, one quick question."

"Yeah."

"Where the hell is the Human Torch!? He should have been with you."

"He's coming right at you now."

"Huh?"

At that moment the Human Torch flew through the burst open doorway and floated there, with a grin he chimed, "Hey looks like you guys need a hand," and with that he began to pull in the flames, absorbing them and putting them out. After a few moments they were all gone and he touched down on the floor then flamed off. "No reason to thank me, I looked over my shoulder while catching up with Iceman and thought you needed a hand."

"Where the hell were you!?" White Tiger yelled.

Johnny grabbed her and Spider-man and took them to a corner, then whispered, "I was trying to grab Shocker before he got here, so I went looking for him. I thought it would be better to catch him first rather than use the bank as bait."

They stared at each other for a few moments. "Was that all? Cause we've been yelling at you to get over here since he turned up." asked Spider-man

"Well that and I saw this really cute girl on the way, and she was feeling a bit down so I tried to cheer her up. Got her number too, so that's good."

"So not only did you leave your position to try and get the glory for yourself," Spider-man began to summarise.

"Wait, that's not exactly tr-" He interrupted but was cut off.

"But then you flat out abandoned us for a girl. Did the explosion get in the way of your time? God, I thought Nova was bad, but you take the cake Johnny."

"Fine, fine, sorry. I thought you guys could handle one simple c-list super-villain." Johnny frowned, behind him White Tiger was glaring at him. "What now?"

"Iceman is pursuing Shocker, maybe you should help." She growled behind closed teeth. "After you messed up so badly finding him the first time we don't want to risk you losing him again."

"Ok, but shouldn't I help here fir-"

"Get Shocker before I kick you six ways to Sunday." White tiger hissed, and Johnny, realising that chasing the super villain was much safer than being amongst the rest of the team right now, flamed on and flew like a bolt.

* * *

Iceman created a U bend in the ice and slid round the alleyway, Shocker just below him. The man cursed and fired up at him, breaking the path in front. Iceman fell down and rolled forwards, standing up without a scratch.

"More teenagers, do you think I'm a joke!" Shocker yelled. His left gauntlet had broken due to firing without properly removing the webbing, but the other still worked fine, he could take this kid.

"Yeah, pretty much." Iceman answered honestly.

There was a pause. "Wh- How?!" He yelled, rage causing Shocker to find it difficult to think clearly.

"Do you need to ask when you dress like that." Iceman scoffed, noticing how Shocker was standing, a little more of a push should do it. "I mean, I know that your mummy tried with it, but you should have used a professional designer."

"You know what, I'm done with this!" Shocker yelled, jumping at Iceman in rage.

Iceman simply froze him in place. "Well, that was easy." However as he began to turn his back, the ice broke as Shocker fired the gauntlet from inside. He pushed Iceman back with a kick and lined up another shot.

"Take this you annoying freak." Shocker shouted, but Johnny appeared in front of him and heated the gauntlet slightly. Shocker screamed in pain and pulled it off, Iceman freezing him as he did so.

"Was that necessary?" Iceman asked, looking at the obvious burn on the man's arm.

"I just melted the circuit inside, and we needed to get rid of it, you should see the crap he pulled with those things. The burn will fade soon anyway." Johnny replied, keeping away from the ice. "So what do we do with him now?"

I'll take him," Fury answered, standing behind them.

* * *

The rest of the team spent a while finding everyone inside and getting them out, including those upstairs. Once they were finished a black hummer with tinted windows turned up. Agent Coulson stepped out and nodded for them to get in, except Cloak and Dagger, who he gave directions to and they went on their own, using Cloak's teleportation. The drive took some time and so they asked Coulson about Johnny and Bobby. "They're fine, Fury found them when he picked up Shocker and so gave them a lift."

"Well, looks like Johnny did do at least one thing right." Sam yawned, holding a pad to his head, which had cut when his helmet dented in.

"Damn idiot, I knew he'd do this." Peter groaned. He looked in a mirror to notice that he had a nasty black eye forming, "could be worse" he muttered to himself.

"How'd you know?" Luke asked, he was physically fine, but felt ashamed that he had gotten trapped under the rubble.

"It's Johnny Storm; the guy has no sense of responsibility. He's a hero, sure, but he gets so easily distracted. The Thing whined about it to me last time I saw him." Peter sighed.

"So like Nova if he was actually useful." Ava joked from a seat behind.

"Ha ha, very funny." Sam replied, "How you guys doing in the back anyway?"

Danny had had a concussion and was still feeling sick. He had a bandage around his stomach, where he had been cut by a piece of rubble, although not so bad he would need stitches, and was applying pressure with one hand, the other holding a sick bag.

Next to him sat Ava, who was keeping her eye on him. She was fine apart from the pain in her ribs, which was fading even now. Finally next to her was Maddy who was simply staring out the window, feeling almost as if she shouldn't be there.

"Hey, Veil, are you alright there?" Luke asked and she looked up and nodded.

"I'm sorry about not being helpful." She said tearfully.

"Huh, don't worry about it, we all screwed up there." Luke answered, looking at Ava for some help.

"Err, yeah, I mean, at least you kept your eyes open and avoided the rubble, unlike a certain team leader." She smiled, winking at Peter as he turned around.

"Yeah, joke about that, but I'm the one that has to deal with Fury after this and you know he'll bring that up- Danny, you alright?" Peter asked, interrupting himself as he saw Danny leaning forwards.

"Could we pull over soon?" He whispered, holding the bag to his mouth. Peter looked at Agent Coulson.

"Don't need to, we're here." He answered and Peter looked around, it was an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of New York City.

Coulson got out and the team followed. They entered and looked around, it was completely empty, yet he continued walking, stopping at an incline in the floor. He leaned down and pushed his hand against a spot in the centre, and after a moment a key panel opened. He quickly tapped some numbers in and the incline opened up, revealing a door way.

"So a secret room in an abandoned warehouse, I swear I saw that in a movie last week." Peter joked and they followed.

The hallway was long and damp, with little illumination, always tilting downwards so to go under the city. "The predecessor of S.H.E.I.L.D. worked on this place, it was supposed to be a secret bunker for during the 'Great War.' It was a good secret, we didn't even know about it until recently and that was when Fury stumbled upon the documents by accident. He had this place modernized and then destroyed all records of it." Coulson explained, and as Peter looked around he noticed just how old the place was. The bricks were cracked and obviously discoloured with green moss covering them. He had to wonder what was down here.

"Wait, so someone managed something like this is the First World War?" Ava asked, stunned.

"We couldn't believe it either; we're guessing they had some help, an extra-terrestrial or an Asgardian perhaps." Coulson postulated.

They walked for what must have been 10 minutes before reaching a dead end, Coulson pushed on a brick and the wall pushed back, he slid it across and they reached a common room. It was weird after the tunnel to find the place, as it was filled with modern items, a large screen T.V., a leather sofa, modern lighting and towards the back a series of beds. There was also a set of stairs that led up to a second floor.

"We renovated this room and added that wall to increase security, press the wrong brick and an alarm sounds which alerts anyone inside to what was going on, as well as locking the wall until someone inside unlocks it or 12 hours pass." Coulson explained.

Sitting on the coach watching the news was Johnny and Bobby, the later stood up and waved while the former simply turned and nodded. Maddy edged towards them, and sat on the sofa next to Bobby.

They looked around and saw Tyrone and Tandy sitting on one of the beds talking to each other, they noticed the rest, smiled and got up to greet them.

"Enjoy the ride?" She smiled.

"It was peaceful, although it would have been better if Danny wasn't still recovering." Luke replied, pointing at Danny who was sitting in the corner.

Coulson approached him and gave him a tablet, "Emetrol, should stop the sickness." Danny nodded and took it.

"Forgive me for being like this." Danny muttered, trying to get himself up. "It is a very impressive place, but why show us it?"

"Because you need to know." Fury replied, standing above them on the stairs. "This place is a safe bunker for you if anything goes wrong, and it is independent of all other groups and that includes S.H.E.I.L.D."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you a member of S.H.E.I.L.D.?" Asked Bobby jokingly, looking away from the TV.

"Yes, but not while here. This was all set up unofficially, all the people involved where loyal to me personally, not S.H.E.I.L.D. or the Avengers." Fury explained.

"So basically only we know of it, but why?" Ava asked.

"Because I am the director of S.H.E.I.L.D., but I am not S.H.E.I.L.D." Fury answered, looking at a patch of wall above them. "I cannot watch all aspects of my organization and I cannot stop everything that is going on. So if, one day, something goes south and you need to hide, this place is where to do it."

"Why, do you think things are going bad? Don't tell me you also have a spider-sense." Spider-man joked.

"I do not need one to see the patterns." Fury answered simply.

* * *

There is an office in Missouri, which from first glance seems almost abandoned. It was clinically cleaned, with bare white walls and a single, filled bookshelf, with the books carefully organized in alphabetical order. There were no pictures in the office, no certificates and no ornaments bar a small American flag located in the corner, folded up. This meant attention was drawn solely to a desk in the centre of the room.

The desk was neat, almost unnaturally so, papers carefully placed in their correct draws, with near perfect overlap, pens lined in a row, and not a speck of dust upon the surface which had been waxed until it gleamed like a mirror. And at it, sat Senator Kelly. The man was in his late 50s and was balding, like his father and his father before him. He was proud of that, he felt he was continuing a proper tradition. His clothes were ironed so not to leave even the smallest of crease, and he did it himself as he felt he was the only able to do it properly.

In front of him was a series of polls, with neat little annotations on the occasional word and Captain America circled, almost as if it was done by another person. Atop the report was the title: the Mutant registration act.

Senator Kelly slowly removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, letting out a small sigh. A couple years ago the mutant registration act was rearing to go, but then that damned captain had to open his mouth and speak out. The act was considered racist now. He was considered racist.

He delicately picked up a glass of water and took a drink, continuing to look at the report. The mutants were not, as a whole, bad people but he knew that they were dangerous. But even a good person with a weapon is still carrying a weapon, and at any moment they could mess up. And that is ignoring the more malicious and corrupt members of their lot, people like Magneto or Apocalypse, who wanted this world to be there's.

They were human weapons and should be treated as such. He looked at a report from a fellow supporter of the movement, who happily used the word 'freaks' in it. He disliked this term, but the people who thought like that could be used, they follow that hate. And he had used them well over the first 3 years of office. But a lot of them were, unfortunately, patriotic to the point of insanity too and so they loved Captain America and when he spoke they rallied behind the idiotic speaking flag.

"Well, human weapons have to stick together" he sneered aloud. And at that moment he had a realisation. It was one that was beginning to spread across the nation, one he had almost grasped before but had always slipped out of his fingertips, it was one that he could use to fix everything.

Why was he solely campaigning against mutants?

The supers were just as bad, they were just better publicised. But there were those thuggish heroes like Spider-man, who J Jonah Jameson had told him all about, your taxman's dream in the form of the Avengers, who had destroyed yet another wonder of the world attempting to save it, and, of course, those bastards that actually killed. They were all accidents waiting to happen, just like the mutants.

He smiled to himself, Captain America had said that mutants should be treated with the same respect the Avengers were, and he had even encouraged a few to join. But that was a double edged blade, if they made a mistake, he would bring them all down. And they would make a mistake, humans always do.

He lay back in his chair and pulled a blank sheet a paper out of a draw, so to begin the writing of the Super-human registration act. He would have them all, just like the good captain wanted.

* * *

"So, what do you think?" Ava asked as they walked back to Peter's house. Coulson had reheated some frozen Chinese for their dinner, so they had that before leaving the base. The 5 new members had headed back to the Tricarrier together, still uncertain of their place in the team, but the rest wanted to walk Peter home.

"Fury is getting paranoid, but it explains why he doubled our size. Guess he thinks a storms coming." Peter surmised, heading down to the subway.

"Maybe, which means we should also be wary, he isn't the type to just suddenly get so jumpy." Luke mused.

"Hmm, maybe. Nevertheless we need to be careful with the newbies, they're not exactly used to the super hero thing, bar the idiot." Peter replied.

"Agreed, however with more training our allies should soon be at our level, and then we will be more effective than before. Perhaps then we will be put on a mission alongside the Avengers." Danny urged.

Peter stopped, by now they had fought the Goblin, Doc Ock, Dr Doom, and even Loki a few time, but never have they been Avengers class missions where the state of the world was in the balance. That's why most of the team joined, to a degree it was what he wanted. Maybe they could be the ones to take down Red Skull once and for all.

"And hey, the sinister six will be screwed." Sam chimed in.

"I would love to see the look on Doc Ock's face when he realises he is out numbered." Peter laughed.

"I would prefer never to see that group again if possible." Ava whispered and Peter knew why, Kraven.

"Don't worry, that was just a thought, we probably will never see them again. Most of them are locked up so far in S.H.E.I.L.D.'s prison I doubt even Fury knows where to find them. And Doc Ock won't do anything on his own any time soon." He comforted.

"Thanks." She smiled.

As they had reached the subway Peter said he would go the rest of the way on his own and they bid farewell. Peter sighed as he got on the train. School tomorrow.

* * *

"Hey Maddy?" Bobby asked, as he sat in the chair in his room. "You alright, how come you ran to us when you got to the secret base?"

"No reason really, I just found it awkward being around the old team." She answered, turning to Johnny, "You really pissed them off too."

"Eh, they can deal with it. I tried to get Shocker before he committed another crime; I thought that would be more useful than letting him blow up a bank." Johnny yawned.

"Well maybe breaking rank and running on a wild goose chase wasn't the best idea." Bobby said, not hiding the sarcasm.

"Spider-man's the comedian, Bobby." Johnny replied, throwing him a bottle of coke from the cafeteria, Bobby caught it and cooled it down. "I just thought that the best way to get us in with the original members was to do something big, I know full well how tightly knotted groups can be and that you need to stand out to get in them."

"I don't think I'll be kept around, I was useless in the mission." Maddy sighed, slumping in a chair.

"Hey, chill, everything will be fine. One bad mission means nothing, and anyway there was nothing you could have done other than help the trapped. Shocker never gave you a chance to turn into sleeping gas." Iceman smiled, taking a sip of his coke. "Ugh, Pepsi."

"Hey, did you make another ice joke during that speech, cause I swear your sounding like Mr Freeze from Batman and Robin." Johnny laughed. "Hey, so are Cloak and Dagger joining us or?"

"We haven't heard anything; I think they might be upset with us though." Maddy said, catching a coke bottle from Johnny, she leaned over to Bobby, who cooled it down.

"Tandy doesn't seem the type to get angry like that." Bobby said confusion in his voice.

"It's Tyrone," Maddy replied, taking a sip of her drink.

"How come?" Johnny asked.

"Cause I let go of Tandy to dodge the rubble and because you were somewhere else. Also was it true about meeting a cute girl mid-mission?" Maddy answered.

"Yeah, in retrospect that was stupid, but I though 'oh well, that guy can't be too hard to take down,' didn't realise he had a bomb. I feel like crap about it." He said, shame clearly audible in his voice, "…But you should have seen her Bobby, seriously, a definite 8."

"Johnny!" Veil yelled.

"So an eight is like who?" Bobby asked.

"Bobby!" She yelled again.

"Joking," he smiled and glanced out the window. "Looks like the rest are coming."

* * *

"Ty, what's wrong." Tandy asked, holding his shoulder. They too had just sat down in one of their rooms.

"I knew that we shouldn't have come here. It's too dangerous." He gulped.

"Yeah, well we had no choice. Fury wasn't exactly subtle about what would happen to us if we refused." She snapped, causing him to flinch. "Sorry, Ty, I shouldn't have said it like that."

"It's no problem. I know this is also hard on you." He replied, touching her hand. "At least the old team seems nice, unlike Maddy who let you drop at-"

"Enough OK. She is obviously not ready for this and made a mistake, don't hold that against her," She requested, taking his hand and holding it tight, "and yes, they did seem nice, didn't they."

"Tandy, I still think it may be a good idea to look for a way out of this, just as an insurance plan. If Fury thinks there's a chance of things going bad I want us as far away from here as possible."

"I'll think about it Ty, but for now try to make friends. This is essentially our only way to do so."

* * *

Shocker looked around the room. It was faintly illuminated by a single bulb in the ceiling which barely lit any of the shadows. They had stripped his costume off, including his mask and placed him in orange overalls, then tied him to the chair. He frowned as a man walked into the light. "You know orange isn't really my colour."

"Shut it Herman." The man replied.

"Oh, I know this voice, Director Fury, nice to meet you at last."

Fury put his face inches away. "Where did you get the bomb and how'd you get it up there?"

"Well, I sent a little pixie up to the dynamite shop and she flew all the way to the bank, smiling at all the children along the way. Or maybe I just know a guy?" Fury stared at him for a moment then hit his hand with a hammer. Shocker gasped in pain and Fury grabbed him by the hair, pulling his face up to look him in the eye.

"I know that you don't have the connections to make that happen, you're a good bank robber, but not a people person. I was surprised to see you actually have assistants now."

"What you know about connections?" Shocker spat, Fury wiped his face then punched Shocker to the floor. "Didn't know you were a sadist, bet that makes dating a challenge."

"Herman, who is the Kingpin?" Fury asked calmly, and Shocker disappeared, leaving the fragile man called Herman Schultz for a moment.

"That- How do you know he… I can't." Herman stuttered in fear.

"So there is a kingpin then? No one ever confirmed his existence to me before." Fury smiled.

Shocker cursed, "Dammit, I thought you knew."

"I had my hunches, and I knew you were just the right man to confirm them, not important enough to be loyal, but just important enough to know of his existence, so who is he?"

"He never met me in person, used a guy called Hammerhead instead."

"Interesting, never heard of him, so where can I find Hammerhead?"

"You don't find him, he finds you."

Fury sighed, "Let me try this again," He said, lifting his hammer, "Where can I find Hammerhead?"

"Fury, I'm not scared of you more than I am of him. No matter how hard you try, he is much, much worse." Shocker said, looking directly at Fury.

"And whys that?"

"Cause at most you can kill me, and that's the least Kingpin can do."

* * *

Kingpin sat above his empire and smiled. So what if he lost Shocker, there were so many other good people in his city to use instead, the drugs trade was booming and the loan sharks had never made more money, which in turn meant he was richer than ever. S.H.E.I.L.D.'s omnipresent Tricarrier did nothing to dissuade the common criminal. Just as he liked it.

He stepped over to a decanter and poured himself a drink of Scotch, he swirled it in the cup and took a sip. He had spent so long in that office that it was now filled with memorabilia and tokens of appreciation. He had souvenirs stolen from the corpses of his opposition, including his masterpiece, The Hood's hood stolen from his bleeding husk, which he hung from one of the walls. He had a bear in the corner of his room which he had been a gift from a hunter for letting him into the city and providing weapons.

There was also a collection of model ships from a captain who had set up a smuggling ring; unfortunately someone offered a better deal and the captain had gotten upset so he had to be offed. Still it was a nice gesture while it lasted. His second favourite thing, though, had to be the boxing gloves that belonged to that damned lawyer Murdock's father, taken from him as he was beaten to death. Whenever the lawyer entered he was sure to put them as close as possible to him and watch, taking advantage of his blindness. It was always so enjoyable to see him trying to be polite and courteous, trying to trip Fisk up and get something to use against him, while the evidence of his father's murder lie just feet away.

Smiling he returned to his seat. It was a lavish chair, personally designed for him for maximum comfort. He liked it so much he actually paid full price and gave the man a tip, something he hadn't done in 5 years. He stretched and picked up a phone. "Carol, can you put Mr Lincoln on the line, we need to talk about some problems I've been having." He asked.

He heard the call connect and waited. "Mr Fisk, how are you?" A voice answered.

"Good, good. Tombstone, how would you like a job?" Kingpin smiled, tapping his fingers on the desk.

"Would that be enforcement or sending a message?" Tombstone asked and Kingpin could hear him fumbling for a pen.

"A message please. The location should be a high school, you chose which one. I don't want any fatalities, but make count." Kingpin said, taking a sip of his drink. He swirled it around as he waited for a reply.

"So… 6 kilos of C4 should get your point across, I'll put it in a good place. You sure about the no casualties thing?"

"Oh, I didn't say that, just no fatalities." Kingpin smiled, "Good luck."

* * *

The alarm clock sounded, waking up Peter, sighing he slumped out of bed and carefully unlocked the box which contained his Spider-Man costume; he slipped it on and picked out his clothes for school and neatly put his books in a bag, then headed down the stairs. Aunt May was still asleep, so he poured himself a glass of orange juice and quickly gulped it down, before heading out for his morning patrol. In 4 hours he would be back in school.

########################

_So this is my first fanfic and I plan to continue it for a while longer, so any constructive criticism would be much appreciated. I also should note that I was taught the English spelling over American spelling of words, so there may be a few differences (color and colour, etc)._

_I've been watching Ultimate Spider-man since around Back in Black and although I consider it to be a very confused show (trying to be a solo Spider-man series, a team series and a batman: the brave and the bold style cross over series all at the same time, meaning none of these factors get the proper attention they could have) there are many episodes that are very strong and cause me to enjoy it, despite having all the little nit-picks. However as I watched I wondered how change would effect this continuity and so decided to play around with it somewhat._

_I always love the concept of change in series like this, bringing in the new to alter the status quo, and how it can lead to a domino effect, causing familiarity to crumble and new things to become accepted. I must admit that some of the cast I have added I have not had as much interaction with as I would have liked so they will probably be a bit out of character, however I wanted to take a broad range of characters from different teams to play around with and I felt these were the best characters for that, rather than just adding half the X-men and Avengers Academy characters because I know more about them, turning it into a cross over series over an expansion to Ultimate Spider-man._

_I added the Human Torch as I used to watch a lot of the 90s marvel cartoons while growing up so have memories of the fantastic four as well as knowing the friendship in the comics between him and Spider-man, although that may take some time to form here. Seeing as how marvel commonly states the fantastic four are the first modern day super heroes in its continuity I decided to play up the experience to give him a degree of smugness and a big headed behaviour on top of his fun loving personality, which I hope does not get too annoying and I promise will be developed upon._

_Veil was added due to my difficulty writing another planned character, and the avengers academy comics being close to hand, and I'm sorry that she is not as iconic as the others and is unrelated to spider-man unlike most other new members as well, but I find her easier to write for due to some key parts of her character in the comics._

_Iceman, Cloak and Dagger I read up on a bit more and had more ease writing than the aforementioned dropped character, deciding to play up a duo thing with Cloak and Dagger, having them have an introvert and extrovert personality respectively (which may be an over exaggeration on my part but I digress), and with Iceman being a normal guy bar his terrible ice puns (which I know would not be seen in the comics, but I wrote one and just kept on going) he was added as I wanted to have a mutant on the group and while researching the younger ones I saw some good scenes from the ultimate spider-man comics which I found to endear him to me._

_Finally the exposition of the mutants was needed to set the scene of the story, as I have always had the view that although you can hate mutants or like them, you cannot properly give a good explanation for liking the rest of the community, they are supers regardless of what people say. It has always confused me._

_I hope you enjoyed the read (which I know was a bit of a long one for a single chapter) and thank you very much for your time._

**Edit: Had to re-upload due to some issues with transferring erasing the paragraphs. I still can't work out how to make them work, I tried ctrl + enter, shift + enter, double spacing each line and so on, still nothing. If anyone can help with that it will be much appreciated.**


	2. Chapter 2: Tombstone

Ava walked silently down the hallway, stopping at a picture frame and unhinging it. She looked down at the picture and stared into the face of her mother, sighing, she put it back. There was a noise from down the hall and she turned. "Dad, are you here?"

She was greeted with silence. After a few moments she edged closer to the living room and could smell something weird, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was. Taking a deep breath she slowly opened the door.

Her dad was sitting there in front of the TV. Relieved, she exhaled, "Dad, how many times have I told you not to sleep on the sofa." He did not react. Ava smiled, at least he wasn't snoring this time. She moved closer and tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, time to wake up." He still didn't react. Getting worried, she began to shake him, but he didn't even stir. She shook harder, still nothing. "Dad, you're creeping me out, please wake up." She shook even harder, and he fell apart.

She fell back in shock and, unable to stop herself, threw up. Looking again she saw he was stuffed with wool and seams of string bound his joints together. With the image burned in her mind she ran, stumbling out of the room. However the hall was no longer present, instead she was in a gallery. She looked around and saw the taxidermy of bears and wolves. A lion was even present in the corner. On the walls were paintings of hunters, progressing in generations and seemingly starting in the Iron Age.

She turned back to the door, but saw only a wall. Gulping, she began to move forwards, the animals became larger and rarer. Some were beings she had only ever read about in Greek mythology. After a while the display stopped and there was just an empty darkness, but with nowhere to go she walked onwards.

As she moved through the darkness she was left alone only with her breathes and the rapid beating of her heart. Thump-thump, thump-thump. She wondered what was going on, however her mind seemed too clouded to focus on an answer. Whenever she seemed to be close to one the thought of her father drew her off of it. Suddenly she felt something rub against her and her heart began to race even faster.

A curtain had appeared in the darkness, she pulled it out of the way to see a new room, just bright enough to make out some walls. Stepping into it, a cascade of lights illuminated the way to the centrefold. She followed them and upon reaching the latest victim of the crazed taxidermist she quickly closed her eyes, but not before seeing the figure of Director Fury. He was standing still in full equipment, reaching for his gun, his face trapped in a state of fear.

"I do like to replicate their last best moments." A voice barely legible over a strong East European accent echoed from the end of the room. "He's not the only one; open your eyes, White Tiger."

She tried to keep them closed but they were pulled open by an unknown force. She stared in horror at the figures of her team; each member had their masks removed and looked at her with glass eyes. Spider-man was stuck in a state of swinging, Nova with his arms outstretched as he flew, Power-man seemingly pushing a heavy force forever more and Iron Fist in one of his many stances. All of their faces locked in looks of sheer terror.

"No," she whispered.

She heard a crack behind her and turned, looking up at the figure of Kraven the hunter, who smiled down at her. "I saved a place for you." He grinned manically, and raised the machete.

* * *

She awoke from the nightmare with a scream. After a moment she clutched her mouth in embarrassment, she hadn't screamed like that since she was 8. Ava wondered why she had had such a nightmare. Maybe the new members had dredged up some long forgotten memories, or perhaps it was Shocker's underhanded actions. Whatever the reason, she felt as though she had been wronged by it. All this time, all this effort to stay composed and yet in that nightmare…

Glancing down at her alarm clock she slid out of bed. If she was up this early she might as well study some of last year's criteria. She turned on the lights for her room. It was a compact space, With a bathroom at the end, a tidy bed that was far too long for her and a small cluttered desk with a few shelves for books, which were packed so tightly that every available space had some kind of book or folder squeezed into it, and even then she still had a few loose books beside her bed. She grabbed one of her note books from the shelf, needing to exert a bit of force to get it out, and placed it on her desk.

There was a knock at her door, "Ava, is everything alright?" She heard Luke yawn.

"Yeah, bad dream, sorry to wake you." She replied, picking up a chemistry book.

"No problem, I was just checking." Luke said, and she heard him return to his room.

Sighing she flicked through her book. She remembered all of this and so it just felt like busy work. Nevertheless she looked at the contents and decided to read a few random passages in more detail that could be relevant from what she had heard about this year.

She continued to revise the content, making new notes and pinning them on a board to read once she got back. After a while the words began to become difficult to focus upon and she put it down.

For a few more minutes she sat there thinking, then she got up and walked over to the window, looking down at New York City below. She wondered if Peter would be going out on patrol soon, after that dream she didn't feel comfortable with the idea that he may be there alone. A few seconds passed and she let out a quiet scream of annoyance then ran over to find her costume and get ready. It was better to be safe than sorry.

* * *

She spotted Spider-man swinging around the empire state building, and yelled out. He stopped and turned around, leaping towards her and landing a few metres away. "Hey White Tiger, what are you doing out of your room so early, aren't you usually studying or something now?" He smiled, to which she shrugged.

"I finished early, and I thought that it was too dangerous for you to be out here alone. After all, you were tricked by Shocker yesterday and I did have to rescue you." White Tiger smiled, trying to make her comment sound more like a joke than it actually was.

"Rub that in why don't you." Spider-man sighed, "Well, it's nice to have the company, so let's go."

She jumped from roof to roof of the buildings, desperately attempting to keep up with him. She hated it when he got all caught up with his web-swinging and right now it seemed he was just moments away from doing some somersaults in the air in-between webs.

She stopped after a while to catch her breath, hunching herself over in a desperate attempt to hasten the process. Spider-man quickly realised she was gone and flipped backwards onto the rooftop beside her. "Hey, are you alright?" He asked, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"How about I web-swing now and you do the parkour thing instead." She panted, and leaned against a railing.

"I don't think that will work, I'm Spider-man remember, the webbing is my thing." He smiled, "but how about I slow down a bit, I forget how fast you have to run to keep up." She sighed and began to get herself up, however at that moment she realised something was wrong. She glanced down at the alleyway below and nudged Spider-man.

"What is it?" He asked, looking down also.

"I think there's been an attack down there, a violent one." She answered, the amulet always got more difficult to control around blood.

"Damn. Ok, grab on to me." Spider-man nodded outstretching his arm, and she simply stared at him.

"Why?" She asked, blushing behind her mask.

"Well, it's too high up to just jump down, so I thought if you grabbed on to me I could lower us both safely. If there's something wrong with that then I'll work something else out." He asked, confused about her reaction. She sighed and grabbed a hold of him round the shoulders; he counted to three and then leapt down, shooting a web and using it to control their speed as they descended.

They gently touched the floor and she let go. Other than a parked car and a few bins she could see nothing, but the amulet was roaring in her head still. She moved around and used the ferocity of the roar to work out where the blood was. It had to have been a bad wound otherwise there wouldn't be this kind of reaction from the amulet. She sighed; this was like a sick game of hot or cold.

After a few moments she found herself in front of the car, shaking her head she slowly crouched down, and looked underneath to see the battered corpse of a cop. "Crap," She cursed, getting up and letting Spider-man take a look.

He dialled the police on a local payphone and reported the crime, then returned to the alley way and sat down, looking at the body for a bit longer. "Looks like he was shot then dumped under the car." He concluded.

"Poor guy, I wonder why someone would do this." White Tiger said sadly, she could see that his eyes were wide open in shock. He saw his fate coming.

"Maybe we should ask the culprit, it looks like he is standing right behind us." Spider-man answered looking at the man's reflection in the car, and White Tiger quickly turned and jumped to avoid the shot. She kicked off a wall at the height of her jump, launching herself at him and felt her elbow connect with his chest. There was a crack and he fell backwards. His eyes bulged as he hit the ground and he let out a gasp of pain. She quickly grabbed one of his arms, twisted it and put him in a lock.

"Crap!" The man spat, trying to move his arm, "Youse guys weren't supposed to be here, we ain't even planted the bomb yet!"

"The bomb? What bomb?" White Tiger yelled, pushing down on his hand and causing him to scream.

"T-tombstone was hired to plant a bomb in a high school, he said I had to get the chargers cause we forgot them, the cop saw me so I shot him, but I was worried he was still alive so..." He cried in pain.

"You came back to finish him off. Which school, and answer before White Tiger breaks your arm." Spider-man threatened, causing the man to shudder.

"Bayville high, he said that we was targeting there, now please let go." He pleaded, tears rolling down his face. White Tiger relented and released him, but punched him in the temple as he tried to grab her, knocking him out and allowing Spider-man to tie him in webs.

"We've got to get moving, quick," Spider-man said while leaping and shooting a web, White Tiger looked at the bound man, and then ran after him.

* * *

They reached the school, a somewhat grand building which towered above them, with a large wall and dark gates blocking the view out into the street. They hid behind the entrance to the yard then looked in to see what was happening. A group of teachers had been rounded up and ordered to lie down on the small bit of grass that could be called the front field. Some of them were crying, a few praying and one was lying eerily still, there were 3 armed men patrolling the front and watching over the hostages. She guessed there was probably more inside.

White Tiger watched Spider-man jump atop the roof and waited a few moments before edging out and calmly walking towards the main gate. There was some yelling and she noticed more men run out from inside the building and draw their side arms.

"What the hell is this bitch doing here?" One yelled, causing her to clench her fists, but she simply carried on walking.

"Tombstone said we were safe doing this now, looks like he was wrong." Another sighed, before turning to the approaching White Tiger, "Dammit, stand still you idiot or we will shoot you!"

She counted their numbers, 6 in total. Spider-man had said to get their attention so he could sneak inside, and with this few of them she didn't even need to plan what she was going to do next. "I was hoping there would be more of you guys here, there isn't even enough for a fight, all I can manage is a massacre."

"The 6 of us should be more than enough, don't forget we have guns." The first yelled, waving it smugly, but his face turned white with shock as White Tiger pounced on him, kicking his head into the mud and leaving him unconscious. The two next to him turned, but were knocked across the field by a bicycle kick to the chins. By this time the last 3 had begun firing blindly at Ava and she jumped backwards to avoid them, causing them to fire at each other instead.

One was shot in the leg and clutched it as blood erupted out from the wound. White Tiger hit him first, with a punch to the chest which sent him flying into another, dazing the both of them. She ran over and finished them off with a leg swing, knocking them off their feet and causing both of them to smack against the ground with a painful thump.

The final thug looked at his gun, dropped it and ran, but Spider-man casually shot a web at his feet causing him to fall face first. White Tiger looked back to see him standing in the doorway dragging two more thugs behind him.

"Found them setting up the bomb inside. I've called Fury; he should be here with a bomb disposal crew to clear this place out soon." Spider-man yawned while stretching, "I hate dealing with big crimes so early in the morning."

"So is one of them Tombstone?" She asked, looking at the two webbed criminals.

"Not that I can tell, they were talking about him looking for that guy from earlier." He answered.

"And yet they didn't mention that I had just gotten back?" A deep voice boomed. They turned to see an incredibly tall man in a black suit walking towards them. He suffered from albinism and when he smiled they saw a row of pointed teeth. Their first thought was that a shark had somehow grown legs and begun to walk on land.

"Tombstone, I'm guessing." White Tiger growled.

"The very same, I believe you are Spider-man and White Tiger?" He smiled, stopping just inches before them and showing his fangs once more. He acted like a man of high class, trying to keep his posture perfect and pronouncing all the syllables carefully in each word he said, saying some that weren't even there, but behind it all he was just another common criminal.

"You must be getting more famous than I thought White Tiger." Spider-man joked playfully, but she nudged him and they returned their attention to Tombstone.

"I know all the names of your little team, my employer was most upset about who you arrested yesterday and this explosion was supposed to be payback." He said, always with a smile on his face, which began to unnerve the two of them. "As it stands I will have to make a more personal message, I can't have this embarrassment."

He quickly changed his footing to a boxing stance and swung a punch at Spider-man, who dodged it and returned with one of his own. Tombstone blocked the swing and hit him with a jab to the gut. He went in for another hit and White Tiger tried to kick him in the moment he was open, Tombstone strafing to dodge it. He stepped forwards and began to throw a flurry of punches at the two, which they could barely avoid, and whenever they were caught by one it felt like being hit by a freight train.

After a while they could see a pattern in how he threw his punches and Spider-man grabbed one of the early jabs, using the momentum to throw Tombstone. He hit the ground with a crack and Spider-man quickly grabbed the man and put him in an arm lock, however Tombstone used all his strength to break out, stunning Spider-man. He then turned and tossed Spider-man at White Tiger, who caught him.

They moved back out of his range and he stopped, watching them, then he reached into his pocket and pulled out some barbwire. Wrapping it around his knuckles he moved forwards and swung a punch, they went to dodge it but it was a feint and he followed with a right jab, hitting Spider-man in the chest and ribbing off some of his skin.

As she saw the blood she remembered her dream and had a momentary lapse of control letting the tablet take control and allowing her to hit Tombstone in the neck, scratching it. He recoiled and she lunged again, hitting him in the chest and tearing at him, however Spider-man grabbed onto her and pulled her off him. "White Tiger, you need to calm down." He said calmly, "I'm alright."

The words were processed in her head and she fought to regain control of her mind from the tiger. As it left she stood up and looked at Tombstone, who shrugged off the scratches. "Damn, even that didn't work! What is this guy?" She gulped.

"That's an interesting ability, I had heard about the potential of that amulet of yours and it is nice to see how it works in person. I bet it could make a fortune on the black market." With that Tombstone smiled and moved forwards.

However this time the two ran from him, knowing it was impossible for them to beat him in a straight fight. He frowned and hissed "I didn't realise you children were such cowards." They caught a glimpse of his expression and Ava couldn't help but think that she actually preferred it when he smiled. As they ran into the building Tombstone watched, taking a deep breath and allowing himself to regain composure, and then he calmly walked after them.

* * *

The two of them ran throughout the school, past narrow corridors and wide rooms which dwarfed any classroom in Midtown High, however none of them seemed like a good place to fight off Tombstone. As they rounded yet another corner they reached an old stairway. They looked up and noticed that the ceiling above the staircase had been risen to enable the students on the floor above to look down, however thanks to the design it was hard to realize that until you were right under it.

They nodded at one another and with a few seconds to spare, Spider-man jumped up onto the ceiling, while White Tiger stood her ground. Tombstone came around the corner, positioned his body as though to punch, and charged at her. The moment before he hit her however Spider-man jumped off the ceiling and landed with both feet on his head, knocking him down with such force that it left an imprint in the tiled floor, he then proceeded to shoot as much webbing as possible as Tombstone began to stand back up. White Tiger proceeded to hit him in the head with a series of punches and kicks as he was restricted, however the only effect it had was to give her sore hands.

She jumped back and they watched in amazement as Tombstone flexed and gradually pulled the webbing off of himself. White Tiger gulped, they were running out of ideas. "What should we do now?" she yelled as they turned and ran.

"If we can't hurt him with our attacks we need to do something that will." Spider-man replied, trying to come up with something. They realized they were now running up the stairs rather than going around them. "I got it! Let's keep going up until we get to the roof."

* * *

Tombstone burst through the doors and looked around the roof, seeing the two heroes standing by the edge, as if considering jumping. "Don't try to run away, or I believe you'll find those teachers out front will be too broken for even a hospital to fix."

They entered a stance similar to Iron Fist's and he smiled, more karate bull. In his experience since getting his powers that pressure point and lock stuff had become null and void, he could always break out of it. He stepped forwards and swung a jab, which they easily dodged, but he followed with another, then another, before breaking into a rhythm of punches, each one faster than the last, and, seeing White Tiger struggle to dodge a particularly quick jab, he went for her with a left hook.

She caught it to his surprise and he realized too late that he was tricked. With all her might she twisted her body and threw Tombstone over her shoulder and off the roof. He clutched at the air, his eyes widening as he realized that at this height he would actually be hurt. Suddenly he felt a jolt of pain spasm through his back all the way to his head, coupled with a deafening crunch, and then it all faded away and he passed out.

Spider-man shot a whole fluid container at the unconscious Tombstone, then pulled him up and hung him from the roof. "Right, now where is the back up?"

* * *

S.H.E.I.L.D. arrived about five minutes later and began to search the school for explosives, as well as arresting the criminals involved. Tombstone was the last member they went for, and he was surrounded by 4 agents as they carried him carefully towards the copter.

"Congratulations you two, if you didn't stop this now there could have been some dire consequences." Fury said, entering through the front gate.

"We were lucky, if Ava didn't find the cop…" Peter replied, bandaging his wound.

"Well, this stuff is 50% luck." Fury answered, "We can't know everything, no matter how hard we try. Sometimes it truly is just a case of being in the right place at the right time."

There was the sound of a scuffle from beside them as Tombstone broke free of his bindings and tried to run. Spider-man reacted quickly and instinctively shot a web at him, but he used it to pull Spider-man towards him. White Tiger grabbed Peter before he got to close and cut the web, however this allowed Tombstone to get to one of the walls, and he leapt over it.

However mid-leap a dagger of light hit him square in the chest causing him to go rigid and fall face first towards the ground. Cloak suddenly appeared below him and pulled him into the darkness within.

"I sent him to a prison cell on the Tricarrier." Cloak said, after suddenly appearing next to Spider-man and causing him to jump. White Tiger also noticed Dagger volley over the wall, landing near them before bursting into a fit of laughter at Spider-man's reactions.

"When did you get here?" Spider-man asked, sitting down after his scare.

"We came with the agents, but Fury told us to wait inside of the copter in case someone tried anything." Dagger answered, drying her eyes and giving a small yawn.

"Bit early for you guys to be up isn't it? I'm normally the only guy out here."

"We were up anyway thanks to your scream." Cloak sighed, shrugging at White Tiger.

"Wait, what happened?" Spider-man asked, looking at her as she glared at Cloak.

"I had a nightmare, that's all." White Tiger replied. She swore she wasn't even that loud.

"Oh, was it Coulson giving you an F again?" Spider-man chuckled, however he stopped when he noticed the lack of reaction. "Something worse then?" he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

"I don't want to talk about it, just another bad dream." She snapped and he recoiled.

"Ok Tiger, just trying to help." He replied sounding hurt, "Well, looks like I need to be back home soon anyway, so I'll see you in school." he walked over to Cloak and Dagger, "Thanks for the help. I forgot to ask yesterday, but are you going to midtown high as well?"

"No, we're not. Cloak… can't go there, so we'll be going to the Xavier institute instead." Dagger replied.

"That's the school for mutants who can't hide their mutation, right?" Spider-man asked, remembering a documentary about it he had seen a few days prior.

"It's for any superhero without a secret identity these days, although it is still primarily mutants. I actually think Jonny goes there as well." Dagger smiled. "Well, we better get going now as well. And thank you for saying thanks."

"See you guys later then." Spider-man smiled and they nodded and headed towards the helicopter.

White Tiger watched him swing away and then followed the two onto it. She closed her eyes and remembered the dream, how Kraven raised his knife and how she let the tiger out. Kraven didn't scare her; it was the idea of losing more people close to her, and, worse of all, losing her self-control which terrified her.

She tore him apart in the dream and enjoyed it. But then once he was gone she didn't stop, she couldn't, and instead looked for someone else. New York became her hunting ground, and by the time she had finally regained control the streets were decorated with her victims. That sight was what awoke her, the thought that if pushed that could be the result. She could become just another thing for the team to stop, lock up and forget about.

She opened her eyes and looked at Cloak and Dagger, who were having a fierce discussion on whether or not they should alter their superhero names. After a while Dagger turned to Ava and smiled.

"Hey, Ava, don't you agree that is a much better name?"

"What is? Sorry I was in a world of my own." Ava replied, trying to look interested.

"No problem. I was saying that The Shroud is a much better name for Ty than Cloak." She stated in a matter of fact manner.

"No it wouldn't, it sounds stupid." Tyrone replied, and Ava noticed he was not muttering like usual, probably because he was too caught up in the discussion to remember to be shy. "Also why do you insist on changing my name and not yours?"

"Because Dagger is a good name, come on Ava, what do you think?" Tandy asked, a smiled on her face.

"I guess The Shroud sounds better, but I always assumed that you guys we're Cloak and Dagger because of the theming. I mean if you were just named after an item alone it would be a bit lame." Ava answered, causing Tandy to look awkward. "Anyway, it's up to Tyrone what name he wants."

"Thank you Ava." He smiled, then he paused for a moment and muttered "Also sorry about bringing up the how scream thing, that was rude."

"It's fine." She replied, appreciating the apology. There was an awkward silence as Tyrone returned to his usual self and recoiled from the attention he was getting after the argument. Tandy frowned, seeming disappointed in how he was acting, and they began to talk to one another in their usual hushed tones.

Ava looked out the window at New York City and began to think about what Tombstone had said, something about an employer. Also how did he know about the amulet? She only knew of Kraven having that knowledge.

She guessed that when the team were finished at school they would need to sort this out.

* * *

Kraven sat in his cell. It was a nice little thing, cleaner than you'd expect and even had a TV with some cable access. There was a barred window that let in some fresh air and the sounds of the outside world, which helped sooth his mind, as well as a bed that easily contended for the most comfortable he had ever slept in.

He had to admit there were worse places to be locked up in, the Tricarrier for example. He was lucky frankly, because of his lack of powers, and some busy work by pencil pushers, he was able to get transferred to a normal prison and it was only a matter of time before Kingpin would find him. The Kingpin always needed a distraction, plus with what he had heard, he may want to hire someone to eliminate the kids. He licked his lips and lied back on his bed.

* * *

Ava sat attentively as she listened to Ms Danvers, their new math teacher, explain about the basics of integration. "And never forget to add the + c at the end, that represents an unknown and is important, just putting it there can get you a mark in these kind of questions, and is needed to deal with more difficult ones."

The classroom was a bit older than the last, with the walls scuffed and the floor cracking in places, but it was much larger and more spacious with surprisingly good acoustics, meaning every word the teacher said bounced around the room. However as did the snoring.

She looked behind her and saw that Sam was face down on his desk asleep, and she was surprised Ms Danvers still ignored him. While looking she noticed the cut on Danny's forehead in the corner of her eye, which he had tried to hide beneath his bangs but to no avail. On top of this he was still somewhat dazed. Ms Danvers had definitely noticed as well and was frequently glancing at him.

As she looked forwards, past Peter who was already working on the questions, she saw Mary Jane Watson was writing in a personal notepad, most likely jotting things down for an article to go into the school newspaper. Harry and Flash were no longer in the same class as them, which was something she wasn't too fused about, although she knew that Peter was upset about seeing less of his friend. She felt sorry for him, but Harry had always been somewhat distant from them, the only reason he would hang around with them at all was because of Peter.

She turned back to the teacher and carried on with the lesson, forgetting for a few minutes about the incident earlier. As she finished the final question the bell went. "Any questions you didn't finish must be completed for homework." Ms Danvers said to a chorus of groans. "And someone wake up Mr Alexander and tell him to report to the teacher's lounge alongside Mr Rand."

Luke walked up to Ava and Peter as he parted with Danny, "I heard about the school incident from some agents, good job you two." He smiled, "And on a different note, if it's possible could one of you two help me with this stuff?"

"If we have time after training I'll help." Peter yawned, stretching from after the lesson. "We better get to the cafeteria and get a seat, I'm starved."

"Same here," Nodded Luke, he looked at Ava, "You coming?"

"Yeah, but what about Sam and Danny?" She asked, looking at them follow Ms Danvers out.

"They may be a while, Sam obviously has detention and Danny is going to have to do a lot of explaining for that head injury, particularly with the security increasing here thanks to that guy earlier."

"You mean Tombstone?" Ava asked as they walked onwards.

"Yeah, that ass-hole" Luke nodded.

"Hey guys, if you're heading to the cafeteria can I tag along?" A voice from behind them asked. The three of them turned to see Mary Jane standing there awkwardly.

"Why are you even asking MJ, of course you can. Also what was that you were writing in class?" Peter wondered, looking at the notepad in her hands.

"Well, there are some rumours about Spider-man's identity spreading about the school, some I'm following up on them." She smiled, looking satisfied with the scoop.

"Err, and any one we know likely?" He gulped. Ava glanced at him, what would he do if she said he was a suspect?

"Interestingly the biggest rumours are around Harry and Danny being him, but that's impossible, you're always hanging out with at least one of them when he turns up. No, I looked deeper and I think it's one of the new students, the sophomores. I mean, Spider-man could have turned up here a year early, and then when he actually does start here they avoid suspicion and can disappear without rumours starting about them." She reasoned, causing Ava to smile at how she had seriously over-estimated Peter's ability to plan out things like that.

"Come on, let's get going," Peter smiled, relieved, "We also have to pick up Harry on the way."

* * *

The cafeteria was bustling, new students cramming in to get food as soon as possible, while the more patient older students watched, knowing that hot plates were also served midway through lunch and that was the best time to get them. Thanks to the line, most tables were free and Harry pointed at one which they sat at.

"So I understand Sam is in detention for sleeping in class, again, but where's Danny?" Harry asked.

"He's… had a rough day." Luke answered, and Harry, respecting the simple answer, chose not to follow up.

"I feel sorry for the sophomores; they didn't know it's best to get a table first." Mary Jane muttered, opening a packed lunch. The tables were starting to dwindle but the line was as long as ever.

"Well we have some seats spare, so if someone needs them we can offer them up." Luke observed, and she nodded.

They talked for about 10 minutes, before Harry mentioned that a new DLC character was being added to a super-hero fighting game. It was the fan favourite, the Human Torch, which Peter scoffed at, still being annoyed with the real thing. Luke, attempting to get in on the conversation, brought up that Power-man should be added as a new character, but then had to spend a few minutes having to remind Harry of who he was.

"Oh, right, that guy. Sorry, I always forget the names of Spider-man's team mates. I mean we've met them a few times but it's nearly always Spider-man who talks, the rest just kind of stand there. Well, he seems cool I guess, but he would be too similar to the Thing and Hulk in terms of combat styles." Harry reasoned, annoying Ava. It was always the same, the four of them were not heroes in their own right, but just one of Spider-man's team mates, or worse, sidekicks. They seemed to be almost non-factors compared to Spider-man. This was the case even to Harry, who actually paid a lot of attention to Spider-man, even if he hated him. "Oh, I actually heard a rumour that the Human Torch has joined that team."

"Really," Mary Jane asked, pulling out her notepad, "that could be good to add on to the article, or maybe to replace."

"Wait, you're thinking about getting rid of the one from earlier? The one you spent an entire lesson working on." Ava queried, not sure whether she should be impressed by that or not.

"Well not definitely, but I text the editor and she said there was too much conjecture for it to be at all valid." Mary Jane sighed, "So where did you hear that rumour from, Harry?"

"The son of one of the police officers from yesterday's bank robbery, I asked about what had happened and he mentioned his dad had seen a flaming man fly in and out again." Harry answered, and Ava wondered why he had been looking into it in the first place. Hopefully it was nothing, but then again, his father was still in a coma and his anger towards it was once again being projected onto Spider-man.

She looked at the line and saw that it had decreased in size, plus fresh food was being brought in. "It may be a good idea to go up soon." Ava noted, and Luke and Peter got up, Harry having also brought a packed lunch. "Should we get someone to take the other seats first so no one pinches the ones we were sitting on?"

"Right, that happened a few times last term. You know, I think Veil and Iceman may be going to midtown now, maybe they're in here." Luke said, and began to look around.

"Speak of the devil." Peter muttered, and he then caught the attention of the two, who had just gotten their lunch and were desperately looking for a free space.

"Hey, you two need a seat?" Luke asked, and they walked over.

"Thanks," Bobby smiled and took a seat next to Peter, while Maddy awkwardly sat next to Mary Jane. "I'm Bobby, nice to meet you." He bluffed, hand outstretched, and Peter took it.

"I'm Maddy." She copied, attempting to smile. She seemed unsure about what was going to happen, and whether or not she was supposed to sit there. Everyone said who they were, and then asked the two to help save their seats.

"I didn't know about those two coming here. Did they tell you last night when you got back?" Peter asked.

"No, Sam saw them on the way down. We didn't actually talk to them at all after we got back to the Tricarrier, those two and Jonny spent most of the time before curfew in Bobby's room." Ava answered; making sure her voice was down.

"Well it's a good job we didn't spend an entire car journey complaining about Jonny, cause that could lead to a divide in the group." Luke commented sarcastically.

"Don't worry about it; it's for the best that Jonny knew we were annoyed about him being an ass, hopefully it means he won't do it again." Ava replied. "Also did you notice Maddy there, I think she's half expecting Harry to pull off a mask and reveal he is actually Fury."

"Yeah, well it's hard to keep up your secret identity while surrounded by people who know about it." Peter acknowledged.

"Yeah, but we weren't that bad." Luke frowned, forgetting the time Peter had to stop him from referring to him as Spider-man in public.

They got their food and sat down; to their surprise Harry was talking eagerly to Bobby.

"I haven't played a game in about a year though, still I really enjoyed it." Harry exclaimed loudly.

Peter gave a confused glance to Mary Jane, who simply replied "Soccer."

"Yeah, same here. Back in one of my old schools I was actually in the school club, but the next one I went to didn't have a soccer club and everyone preferred basketball. Don't get me wrong, that's also fun, but I never enjoyed it as much as soccer. It's just so cool." Bobby replied, barely able to contain his enthusiasm. "Maybe if the field is free we can do a quick game after we finished eating, 2 v 2 or something. Not as good as a full game, but still fun."

"I don't think the school has a soccer ball though, I used to play in a park after school when I did. How about I bring one tomorrow and maybe Sam and Danny will be there so it can be 3 v 3." Harry smiled, clearly looking forwards to it. "Oh, right, Danny and Sam are two of Peter's friends."

Ava sighed, the clarification was there again, not his friends but Peters. She tried to ignore it and began to eat.

* * *

The final bell rang out and the group headed to the detention office, Maddy and Bobby joining them once there.

"Hey guys, so why are we going here?" Bobby asked, looking around the room.

"You'll see." Sam smiled evilly, clearly looking forwards to how they would react once the chairs moved.

"Err, I know I keep saying this, but sorry about screwing up yesterday. I should have just turned to sleeping gas and knocked Shocker out while he was standing around." Veil groaned.

"It's fine." Ava replied, beginning to get tired of how many times she had said that word. At least she seemed genuine, but it was grating.

"The worst thing you can do is not to make a mistake, but to not learn from it." Danny replied in his usual advising tone. Since they had returned from lunch he was back to his usual self.

"Or in easier terms, just don't do it again." Luke smiled, falling back into his usual chair. "Take a seat you two."

"This… isn't going to launch us like an ejector seat is it?" Bobby asked, sitting with trepidation.

"Not exactly." Peter laughed, which did not help them.

Coulson suddenly entered the room and closed the door behind him. "Veil, Iceman, today you two will be partaking in simulation training, both as a group with the other 3 new heroes and on your own. The rest of you will watch and make notes. This should help all of you in missions to come." He explained.

"Simulation? You mean like the Danger room in the Xavier institute?" Bobby asked, looking worried.

"So do you have that simulation thing hidden in this school?" Maddy wondered, not noticing Bobby's expression.

Ava looked to her left and saw that Sam was grinning and counting down in anticipation. She sighed at his sense of humour.

Turning back towards Coulson she saw him lower his fingers to the button below the desk. "No, you'll be going to the Tricarrier to complete it." He explained.

"Err, so are we catching a copter there or what?" Maddy asked, now noticing Sam's smile.

Coulson shook his head. "No, the copter would be too noticeable from here. Instead you'll be using something swifter and much better hidden." And he pressed the button.

The chairs clicked and fell back and suddenly they began to slide down a series of narrow tubes. Ava could hear Bobby and Maddy screaming and remembered the shock she had had the first time that had happened, which reminded her of the drop just in time to react to it.

She landed with the rest of the original members of the team on her feet, while Bobby and Maddy slid across the floor into a padded part in the wall. They jumped up and patted themselves down, glaring at Sam, who was laughing loudly.

"Thanks for the heads up 'pal.'" Maddy scowled at Sam, picking up her glasses which had fallen off during the crash.

"You should have seen your faces, or heard you. It was so funny." Sam chuckled, clutching at his ribs.

"You know what I think would be funny? Making you into a human popsicle." Bobby grinned, tapping Sam on the shoulders, freezing them and causing him to jump backwards.

"Hey now, no infighting." Luke said calmly, picking up Sam and moving him away, "Sorry about that, but even if you do know about the drop it is still hard to land. So we thought it would be a good little joke."

"Yeah, the padding was added when I hit my head there the third time we went down the chute." Peter sighed, rubbing at his head in memory.

"I'm guessing S.H.E.I.L.D. isn't the biggest advocate of health and safety." Maddy sighed, looking out the window at the harbour around them. "Where are we?"

"The Tricarrier, or at least the aquatic part. It's parked down here for us while we go to school." Ava explained.

"It's like a giant fish tank." Bobby said, "Imagine putting this down in the Caribbean. Think of all the kinds of species you'd see."

"Yeah, I don't think S.H.E.I.L.D. would let us do that." Ava replied, "and anyway the last time we tried to take off somewhere with S.H.E.I.L.D. tech things went… bad."

"Think island prison for a guy made of sand who could destroy NYC if he touched Manhattan island bad." Peter finished. "Also on that note, never, ever, trust Sam with anything that requires an ounce of intelligence."

"I misread one word." Sam yelled back.

"The incredibly important word that means to keep away." Peter sighed.

"Perhaps we should get going." Danny advised before the shouting could begin.

"Yeah, let's do that." Luke agreed with a sigh.

* * *

Kraven looked at the message. He found it in his cell after yard time and wondered which guard must have put it there. He read it again and nodded, it was a contract from Kingpin, and it started today. He wondered how they planned to get him out of the prison, would another villain start a prion break, or perhaps they would orchestrate a riot, maybe it would even be a file in the cake thing?

Suddenly the lights in the prison faded and there was just darkness.

Kraven stood up, this was wrong, it was just afternoon and there was a window in his cell anyway, he turned then felt the wall searching for it. Upon grabbing the bars he pulled himself up and looked out, but there was nothing. He let go and fell back. This was darkness like he had never experienced before, it was the complete absence of light, his eyes, which were good enough to hunt prey at night in a rain forest, couldn't even make out shapes. He was terrified.

There was chaos in the cells, screaming and chanting from all across the prison. He began to sweat and shake, he needed to get out, he needed to see something, he needed to get out, he needed to remember what light was, what it was like to see, he needed to get out, he-.

Kraven heard some footsteps move towards his cell and stop at it. "It's this guy, right?" a voice said, and his vision returned. He stared at two men in costumes who looked down at him. Kraven smiled, so this is how Kingpin would do it.

By the time vision had returned to the rest of the prison, his cell was empty.

* * *

The Tricarrier reconnected together and Maddy and Bobby stood gobsmacked. "That was amazing," Maddy said, staring out the window that just a few minutes ago looked onto the harbour and now gave views of the whole of New York City.

"Yeah, it puts a whole new perspective on the view." Bobby smiled.

"We sometimes will use a copter to get here if we go out on patrol first, but this really is the best way." Ava explained, looking out to Midtown High.

"Well come on guys, let's get moving." Luke said, clapping his hands together.

They walked down the corridor and talked a little about the first day of school. Bobby seemed to have had missed a lot of school last year for some reason and was struggling due to that.

"I have some notes if you need to borrow them." Ava offered, wondering where she put the book this morning.

"They're really good too; they even have a contents page and everything." Peter recommended, "Although, obviously, mine are better."

"Oh really?" Ava laughed "And yet whose grades were better last year again?"

"Notes have nothing to do with grades." Peter said in a text book tone "And anyway, you're grades were only higher because of that mistake in the Math exam."

"You mean the one where you 'misread' the question." She replied, greatly exaggerating the word.

"I did misread it! How many times do I have to say that?" He asked loudly.

In the middle of the argument Bobby tapped Danny's shoulder "Err, how long is this going to continue?" He whispered

"Hmm, well knowing the two of them… about 10 more minutes." Danny replied, calculating some factors on his fingers.

"Yeah, their lover's quarrels always take a lot of time." Sam smiled and everything went quiet.

"What was that?" Ava and Peter said simultaneously, turning their heads slowly towards Sam and causing a chill to roll down his spine.

"N-nothing." Sam gulped, his voice unnaturally high.

"I thought so." Ava frowned, leaning away from Peter awkwardly.

"So are they dating or what?" Maddy asked Luke.

"No, they're just friends." Luke replied, sounding a bit unsure himself.

"Can we get a move on, I think everyone else will already be there by now and we still need to get changed into our costumes." Peter sighed, getting the impression that the conversation was still on them and really wanting to end it, and they swiftly ran to the simulation room.

Within a few minutes of running, and a quick visit to the changing rooms down the corridor, they reached the door and entered.

It had been altered to replicate the interior of a derelict castle with large, worn drapes loosely hanging from the ceiling to block visibility of the outer walls. They danced eerily in the wind, suggesting that the wall behind had been damaged. The floor was engulfed by a vivid red carpet which creased and cracked as they walked over it, almost as though it would turn to dust if stepped upon with too much force.

At the centre of the room was a throne, which seemed to be the only maintained thing in eyesight. It was golden edged with a royal purple cushion and silver seaming. Ava couldn't help but think it looked comfortable and considered sitting on it.

"Nice looking seat isn't it?" A voice said from her right. She turned and saw Jonny, who was leaning on one of the curtains. He kicked off of it and walked towards them. "This place is Doom's holiday home, at least how it was before he renovated it properly. Seeing as how it's, you know, Doom, he brought that thing in first. After all, pride is his greatest attribute."

"You fight him often?" Nova asked, causing him Jonny to give him a confused look.

"I'm a member of the Fantastic Four, the archenemy of Doctor Doom. So yeah, we've met once or twice." He said with heaps of sarcasm in every word.

"So why are we looking at this place then?" White Tiger asked, changing the subject before Nova realised he was being mocked.

"Well, my guess is that we're going to fight a simulation of Doctor Doom." Jonny replied, moving towards the throne and slumping onto it, "Fury is waiting for Cloak and Dagger to arrive before he properly explains."

"So where are they?" Power-man asked, looking around the room.

"Xavier institute, it closes a bit later than most schools. They kind of expect you to do a club there, I think Cloak is doing drama and Dagger is trying her hand at writing or something." Jonny yawned, altering his position on the chair so that his legs were over the arm rest. "You know this is not as comfy as it looks."

"That's because it's a fake replica." Spider-man answered, knowing that behind the image it was little more than a metal construct. "So when do they finish?"

"2 minutes. So they'll be here in 5." He replied as he swung off of the chair and stretched. "Anyway, you five need to go up there for now." He said while pointing at the observatory glass.

"So we really are on our own then?" Veil gulped and Jonny walked over and smiled.

"Don't worry about it, little test to make training better. They'd just hold us back anyway." He said, nodding at Bobby who gave a little chuckle.

"I doubt that." Bobby replied, waving at the five as they left.

Ava thought to herself that, despite only knowing one another for a day, the three of them seemed to get along very well. Faster than the five of them did. She paused for a moment and then tapped Spider-man on the shoulder.

"Huh? What is it White Tiger?" He asked, stopping.

"I wanted to apologize for earlier, you know, when I snapped at you." She said, she knew that he had probably already forgiven her already, or maybe even forgotten, but she needed to say it.

"It's fine, if anything I was probably being a bit too pushy there." Spider-man shrugged.

"No, I'm happy you were concerned." She smiled, and then got everyone else's attention. "Also I was thinking that the five of us should go to the cinema tomorrow or something. I mean just because the summer holidays are over doesn't mean we should stop hanging out outside of missions and school." She suggested and the rest of them thought for a few seconds.

"Sounds fun, we could do that after training." Power-man smiled, "I think that new robot movie is supposed to be good."

"Or maybe a Rom-com?" Nova suggested to a few weird looks. "What, they can be good movies, plus their relaxing."

"Or perhaps we could see if there are any martial ar-" Danny began, but was cut off by a chorus of 'No kung fu movies.' "Ok, I'll also vote for the giant robot movie." He muttered.

Spider-man nodded and replied, "Yeah, we better enjoy the lack of homework while we can."

White Tiger smiled and they walked towards the observatory.

* * *

By the time they reached it Cloak and Dagger were also in the room, Ava guessed they had teleported there straight after school. The door opened behind them and Fury walked in.

"Good, since you're all here the simulation can begin shortly." He announced, rubbing his wrist.

"So what is going to happen exactly?" Spider-man asked, looking down on the other five members. He noticed that Cloak and Dagger still kept to themselves.

"In a few moments I'm going to summon up the robot, who will be impersonating Doctor Doom. After I head down there and explain what they need to do, they will fight him and you will rate their performance. There will be a few more group scenarios and then a quick individual test where they need to defeat 5 robots." Fury explained. "Once this is all completed an agent will come to take the results and we will analyse them and use it to set up suitable training regimes." And with that he turned and left, pressing a button on the way out.

There was a whirl of clogs and gears followed a gasp of hydraulics from the room below, causing White Tiger to look down, and she saw the figure of Doctor Doom rise from the floor. The five below turned to look at him and Jonny flamed on and charged.

* * *

Fury walked along a narrow corridor in the tricarrier and carefully opened the door at the end. He silently walked in, stopping next to Coulson, and looked through the one way glass at Tombstone.

"How's your wrist?" Coulson asked without taking his eyes off of the super villain.

"Fine, but I won't be punching him again." Fury replied, turning away from the interrogation room.

"I don't understand why you are so obsessed with capturing this Kingpin, he seems to just focus on small scale crimes and not with the large scale ones we deal with. This should be something for the cops or the federal agents to deal with." Coulson asked.

Fury paused for a moment, thinking to himself, then turned back towards the mirror. "When the team first dealt with the Sinister six we focused all our efforts on taking them down, the police in the immediate area were also called in and we had agents on standby to get involved if things went south. Well during that night multiple cases of larceny were reported in areas where the police could not get to. I thought it sounded weird so I began to look through the records, for every Super villain attack there were multiple crimes reported in areas which the police could not respond to at the same time."

"Almost as if they were planned to coincide with each other." Coulson noted.

"Correct, so that got me thinking, maybe there is someone in charge of all this stuff, a kingpin of crime who is organising events so to guarantee a profit, able to use even the vendettas of super villains to further his goals. And if that was the case it meant that the individual has access to powers capable of bringing down all of New York. So if that person ever decides he is sick of being just a crime boss, we may have a NYC based organisation that could rival even HYDRA on our hands." Fury explained, causing Coulson to take his eyes of Tombstone and look at him. He seemed calm, but Coulson could see that beneath the mask Fury was steaming.

"So I need to find out who he is and stop him, before we are too late." Fury announced, walking over to the glass, "and I know that Tombstone here has the answers, if only I can get them out of him."

* * *

Kraven walked towards the structure, it was a two story apartment complex in the middle of towering office blocks. The two men walked ahead and opened the door. The three of them then entered and one of the men, a small skinny guy who wore a purple mask and a tweed suit, grunted "Stay here."

Kraven saw the two of them walk onwards and he decided to sit on the floor. He looked around the hall, it was a simple place, with beige walls and a brown carpet patterned with white and black crosses. Some mediocre paintings of mountains and trees were hung infrequently on the walls, seemingly produced by amateurs.

He closed his eyes and listened. He could hear the faint noise of the men's voices in a distant room above him, along with someone else. He could not make out the words but he could hear the tone of their voices. The two of them were terrified of the new voice. There was a pause every time he finished talking just to guarantee that they did not interrupt him.

Kraven heard the voice becoming more aggressive, and after a few moments there was the resonating sound of a gunshot. Silence followed and then there was a scuffling of feet as one of the men, a taller, fatter thug wearing a green mask and a tracksuit, ran in "The boss will see you now," he gulped and Kraven got up and followed him.

He entered the furthermost apartment on the top floor, which had the same colour theming as the rest of the building, and walked into an office. It was filled with pictures of old gangsters in pin style suits and a man sat in the centre of the room who had seemingly stepped straight out of one of them. He stood up and stepped over the corpse of Kraven's skinny saviour.

The man had a flat upper head and scrunched up face which kept causing Kraven to think of a cartoon of Al Capone he had once seen. "Kraven, huh? Imagined you'd be smaller. Regardless, I understand that the last time you were hired it was through Tombstone. Unfortunately he is unavailable for a small while, so I shall be giving you the Kingpin's orders from now on, as well as sorting out your equipment." The man grimaced as he forced himself to pat Kraven on either shoulder.

"Hammerhead?" Kraven gulped. He had heard the name from Tombstone and this man fit the profile perfectly, but he hoped he was wrong. Hammerhead was regarded as the devil of the criminal underworld, a man that could be tamed by only Kingpin, and would kill anyone else who tried. He was a violent, aggressive thug and Tombstone had warned him that he only accepted perfection in his cronies, and anything less could set him off on a murderous rampage.

"The one and the same, now shall we talk about what Kingpin wants you to do?" He asked, walking back to his seat, stepping on the corpse once more with a deafening crack.

"Yes, of course." Kraven said with a forced smile.

"The Kingpin wishes to hire an acquaintance of yours, a Doctor Otto Octavius. Unfortunately we have no way of getting a hold of him, but we believe you can." Hammerhead explained, cracking his knuckles. "You can do that, right?"

"Y-yes of course." Kraven replied, looking back at the door behind him. Hammerhead followed his gaze and when Kraven looked back he gave a cruel smile.

"Excellent. Once you have him you will bring him to this location to talk about his future," he said, throwing over an envelope, "and then we will then supply you with all the weapons you need to complete your hunt."

Kraven glanced at the numbers on the paper inside then nodded. "How should I contact you when I have found him?" he asked, looking into Hammerheads black eyes.

"You're a hunter, right? So kill a Lion in central park zoo or something flashy like that. It'll probably also get the junior avenger's attention as well, which will make your hunt so much more interesting."

* * *

White Tiger caught herself yawning and stretched. The simulation training was getting difficult to watch. By now the individual tests had begun and of course the Human Torch was up first, blasting through the robots and leaving molten scrap behind.

She had to admit he was good, probably as good as an Avenger, but he knew it. If they had simulated paparazzi there he would have probably posed for them, but without such things he substituted by just showing off to the team. He would salute them as they watched and frequently created images with the flames on the floor. She smiled a bit when the annoyed Juggernaut simulation sent him flying one time. But he got back up and trapped him in the flames.

She finally realised he was finished when he flamed off, fanning himself with his shirt, "Worked up a bit of a sweat there, must be having a bad day." He smiled and White Tiger felt the urge to hit him round the head. Taking a deep breath she then focused on Iceman, who stepped up as the simulation altered and new robots were brought in.

She had noticed that throughout the team exercises he had been trying, and failing, to pull off a variety of manoeuvres, once or twice almost falling into Jonny's flames or accidently catching Cloak with an attack. She guessed it was to do with him being out of practise, and she could definitely see that at close range. He frequently left himself open from attack by the robots and whenever they got a shot at him he never reacted fast enough to avoid it. However his powers were versatile enough to combat his enemies though despite these weaknesses.

He would use the ice to form spikes below the enemy forcing them to jump and when teamed with someone they would attack the opponent in the air and finish them off. Even when on his own he would form a lance and throw it at the enemy as they fell. Once in close range he created a series of weapons to compensate for his lack of physical strength and she knew that with a bit of training he would be formidable.

As he finished off the last of his robots with a flail formed from ice, Dagger stood up for her turn. She and Cloak had not separated from one another throughout the tests before and had formed some excellent combination attacks, with Dagger immobilizing the enemy with her daggers and Cloak drawing them into the shadows. However they had not gotten too involved with anyone else and she could tell that outside the dynamic they would not be as effective.

This was proven true as Dagger was knocked about by the test robots, barely able to take them down, she definitely needed some hand to hand combat training and soon. The same applied to Cloak, who was unable to get a hold of the robots to pull them into the shadow world and was frequently hit by the robots. Although they both defeated the robots, they just barely managed.

With everyone else finished Veil was the last to step up and everyone looked on with knowledge of what was about to occur. Throughout the team tests Veil had simply avoided attacks and changed into particular gasses when ordered to. Her powers were versatile enough to inconvenience the robots but a lack of combat skills and insight into what she could actually do meant that she would just dodge the attacks instead of fighting back.

As they watched, the five of them agreed that Veil was going to need a lot of training, probably more than anyone else. She needed to learn to think on her feet and be autonomous otherwise there was no way she would be able to last out there.

Sighing White Tiger leaned against the glass. "Should we call this test off, it's just a waste of time now."

"I think that may be for the best." Power-man nodded, "I'm guessing if someone was with her she could have done something in a supporting role and have them take out the robots, but on her own there is no way she'll win this."

Spider-man agreed and pressed a button on the wall, "Veil, that's enough, we'll end it there." He announced over the loud speaker, causing her to solidify, however instead of walking to the door she shouted up at them.

"I can continue, please let me do this!" She pleaded, desperation in her voice, which caused White Tiger to become alert. "I need to do this! I can't be kicked out, not yet."

White Tiger paused, she recognised what Veil was feeling, she remembered how when she started it was as if the world would fall apart whenever she make a mistake. White Tiger had felt it from the moment she entered the Helicarrier, that she needed to live up to her father's legacy, and because of that she knew what she needed to say.

Walking over to the wall she pressed the button and calmly said "Don't worry Veil, it's just a test to see where you are at the moment and nothing more. There's no risk of failure, and even if there was you've done enough. All this does is tell S.H.E.I.L.D. what training you'll need. So just leave it Maddy, take a breather and sit down."

She looked down at Veil, who rubbed her eyes and walked towards the door. "Why did she think messing up would lead to her being kicked? Fury's not that bad." Power-man asked.

"Something must be putting pressure on her, when that happens all you can see is failure and the worse possible outcome." White Tiger explained.

"I wonder whether we should go down there and see if she's alright?" Nova asked, although it felt as though there was just one way to answer that, and so the five of them headed down.

"Should we ask about what's ailing her?" Danny pondered as they got a bit closer.

"No," White Tiger replied, "Its best she tells us when she's ready, any sooner and it gets awkward." She remembered how telling Spider-man about Kraven and her father helped her get through the one of the toughest days of her life, and since then she had felt as though a weight had been lifted. But whenever she thought back she concluded that if she had told him so sooner it would have just been superficial, and nothing would have changed. Sometimes you need to talk about things to get them off your chest, but it needs to be to the right people and at the right time.

They reached the group and saw Veil sitting with Jonny and Bobby both of whom were in their normal states. Even Cloak and Dagger were close by, with Dagger giving her a hug. "You were fine when we teamed up, remember when you used the smokescreen to blind Tigershark, it was thanks to that we were able to take him down."

They saw the five of them standing there and got Veil up, whose eyes were red. "I'm not getting booted, right?" Veil gulped.

"No, of course not," Luke replied, consoling her, "it was just a test, and like Dagger said, you did fine in the team based portion of it. This just means that you won't go out alone on missions or patrols until we're sure you're ready for it. Plus I think Spider-man already has some plans on how to use your powers in certain circumstances."

"Yeah," Spider-man nodded, "I got this combo planned for you and Iceman to counteract infrared goggles, for example."

Veil smiled a bit and sat back down, she then turned to White Tiger and said, "Thanks for that back there, you know, in the danger room."

"It's fine, I've been there." White Tiger smiled, then quickly said "Also it's not called the danger room, it's just the training room."

"Sorry, my fault, I mean it is essentially a smaller version of the one in the Xavier institute, so I kept calling it that." Bobby muttered, "It was the only thing I got to use in that place anyway so it's hard to forget the name."

"Well if Fury hears you calling it that he may get shirty with you." Nova chuckled, "he's gotten angrier for less."

"Yeah, when we mentioned that this place wasn't as original as we thought he went unnaturally quiet," Spider-man smiled, "I'm kind of expecting him to bring down the Tricarrier again just for an excuse to make the training room better. I don't think he likes S.H.E.I.L.D. being beaten."

"He's not that petty," Ava sighed. "And anyway, the Tricarrier is controlled by a series of advanced computers that make it impossible to do anything less than perfect movements; it would be beyond difficult to crash this thing."

Suddenly the Tricarrier began to shake and they looked around at one another before running to a window and looking out at nothing other than some storm clouds. A voice erupted over the loud speaker "Sorry for the turbulence, someone spilt their coffee on the computer… again."

They looked at one another and Spider-man said, "Yeah, so about those 'perfect' movements."

* * *

With an hour to go before Spider-man had to leave, and no missions being delivered at the last moment like usual, the team began to train.

Spider-man had already come up with some pairings to focus on improving weaknesses of the newcomers and so far they seemed to be working.

As Iceman had trouble with manoeuvrability and reaction time he had The Human Torch attack Iceman's path, which was gradually improving his ice formation allowing him to dodge the flames. Iron Fist meanwhile taught some techniques to Dagger and Veil, as well as improving their form, so to allow them to defend themselves. Spider-man also had some ideas for simulations to get them to better use their powers but he needed to run them past Fury first.

Power-man on the other hand was showing some grappling techniques to Cloak, employing Cloaks size and surprising strength to guarantee no one could break free of his grasp before he teleported them to a jail cell. Finally Spider-man, White Tiger and Nova did some light sparring.

In the past few months they had begun to be able to match Spider-man in a fight once more, and were able to employ some simple teamwork to outsmart his spider-sense, as although he could realise there was danger he still had to react to it.

Running forwards White Tiger kicked at Spider-man's legs, causing him to jump up, meanwhile Nova charged at him forcing Spider-man to contort his body to avoid the attack, grabbing Nova's shoulder as he went by. Nova spun around and flew backwards into a wall, making Spider-man let go and shoot a web at the ceiling, pulling himself up towards it. White Tiger, anticipating this, leapt at him, cutting the web and forcing him to drop towards the floor, where he was hit by one of Nova's beams mid-fall, knocking him back up to the now falling White Tiger, who swung her leg into his forming block, sending him hammering into the floor.

Spider-man sat up after a few seconds and panted "that was a good combo, but you forgot one thing."

"And what was that," Nova said smugly, still floating in the air. Spider-man pointed up, and a web mesh fell onto Nova trapping him. White Tiger went to move forwards, however she had landed on a web and her feet were also stuck. Of course, he'd set a last minute trap once he realised he would lose, she thought to herself.

"If I had a partner then they could have taken you two out while you were trapped. Ust because you got me doesn't mean the fight is over." He smiled, jumping back up, "I based that off of Shockers bomb yesterday, being out matched and being defeated is not the same thing."

"So is this a draw or?" Nova sighed, blasting the webbing off of him.

"Nah, you guys win, if Ava hit me at full force I would have been out for the count, and anyway I don't actually have a partner. I was just saying there are ways of overcoming defeat." Spider-man smiled. "Now if it's alright, I need to sit down for a while, I feel a bit faint." And with that Spider-man fell forwards. In a flash Nova grabbed him and carefully lowered him to the ground.

White Tiger also ran over and the rest of the team stopped and looked. The two of them noticed a part of the costume that seemed suck to his body and touched it gently, the patch felt warm and she looked at her hand and saw it had gone red. White Tiger remembered where he had been hit by Tombstone, where the flesh had torn. By this time Power-man had run over and Nova had pulled the chest of his costume up, showing the wound.

Although it had healed earlier, the sparring must have re-opened it, and possibly even made it worse. Power-man ripped off part of his shirt and applied pressure to the wound, he looked up at Cloak. "Have you been to the med-bay yet? Can you teleport Peter there?" He gulped.

"N-no, I'm sorry, we never needed to go there." Cloak apologised. Power-man nodded, then picked up Peter and ran, White Tiger, Nova and Danny by his side. The rest of the team paused, uncertain of whether or not to follow, before Jonny also began to move, motivating the rest of the team to accompany him.

They reached it in a matter of minutes and Power-man pulled the doors open, "We need some help here." He yelled and some nurses ran over, taking Spider-man off of him and laying him down on a bed. A doctor ran over and examined the wound; he called for some files and got some anaesthetic, injecting Spider-man with it before then acknowledging the rest of the super heroes.

"We'll take him into to surgery. Simple wound, he'll be fine soon enough." He said in a monotone fashion, before pushing the bed towards a room in the back. One of the nurses ushered them out and they sat outside.

White Tiger looked up as the others arrived. "He should be fine," she explained to their concerned looks.

"That's good." Dagger smiled, leaning on the wall. "So was that from that Gravestone guy?"

"Yeah, Tombstone used some barbwire as knuckledusters in that fight." White Tiger sighed. She looked and noticed Power-man stand up, and almost instinctively held her arm out to stop him. "Where are you going?" She asked.

"I'm going to kick the crap out of the guy who did this." Power-man replied, clenching his fists in anger, "I won't let someone harm my friends like this."

"We can't do that. It's not what heroes do." White Tiger replied, trying to remain calm. She remembered about Ben Parkers killer, and that at times like that the best thing to do is walk away.

"White Tiger is right, Tombstone is imprisoned now, so sit back down Luke. Attacking him would be against the Geneva Convention and then he could be released instead." Iron Fist insisted, placing his hand firmly on Power-man's shoulder. They paused for a moment then sat back down.

"If he ever even thinks about breaking out though, he's mine." Power-man conceded.

"There will be a line." Nova muttered, "I think all of us will want a piece of him in that case."

"I agree." Jonny Storm nodded, to the surprise of White Tiger, although upon thinking she had noticed he had generally been quite friendly to them.

With that they waited in quiet. After a while she said, "Look, you guys get back to practise, I'll get a hold of you once Peter is ok. It's better for you guys to do something to keep your mind off of this."

There was a small pause then Power-man replied, "No, we'll stay, we're not leaving a friend."

"You won't have to." A groggy voice from inside replied, and Spider-man walked out with his mask removed, they stood up and Iron Fist and Nova grabbed him into a hug. His skin was paler than usual and he definitely looked like he had been through hell, but there was his usual self behind it all. "A few stiches was all I needed, the doc thought about giving me a blood transfusion but felt it wasn't necessary. I probably shouldn't do much activity for a while though, wouldn't want to risk re-opening the wound again. So anyway, how'd I look?"

"It's an improvement," White Tiger joked awkwardly, holding him on the shoulder. He smiled in response.

"So I should put the mask back on then?" Peter moaned sarcastically, pulling it over his face. "Right, well todays been fun but I think I'll need a lift home now. The doctor forbade me from web swinging, says it stretches the abdomen too much and I don't want to leave the Spider-cycle parked under a tree in Queens, people may get suspicious."

"Don't worry; I'll give you a lift." Nova offered "and I swear I won't drop you this time."

"Yeah, you better not; I don't want a repeat of last Friday." He sighed to a moan from the group.

"Err, what happened last Friday?" Bobby asked after some nudging from the rest of the new guys.

"Don't ask." White Tiger answered, "Just don't. You really don't want to know."

"…That just makes me more curious." Jonny muttered.

With a few farewells Spider-man and Nova moved towards a bay door and the rest of the team, uncertain of what to do headed back to their rooms, split up into small groups once again. Ava decided just to go back and lie down, saying a quick good bye to everyone else. She wondered where Fury was during all of this, but decided to leave it. The past two days had been way too long.

With a thought about what movie to watch tomorrow, she fell into a deep sleep.

* * *

The next week passed uneventfully. Other than a quick scuffle with the Frightful Four, who were terrified by the concept of facing nine superheroes at once and surrendered peacefully. Peter had not been able to train or go on missions for most of the week and was itching to go out on patrols, so, to ease his worries Luke, Danny, Sam and Ava had taken turns to do them.

Ava sighed as she completed yet another one, and caught a helicopter back up to the Tricarrier. She wondered how Peter had managed to do this every day, it was tiring as hell. She stretched as she walked across the hall to her room and crossed paths with the recently awakened Tandy.

"Good morning." She said, causing Tandy to become aware of her. Tandy yawned something that could be interpreted as 'morning' in reply. "Tired?" She asked.

"I need Coffee, it is too early in the morning to be up."

"It's only half six." Ava laughed.

"Waaaay too early." Tandy smiled weakly, slouching towards the food hall.

"Yeah, just don't go in the research division by accident like Jonny, they still haven't cleaned up from then." She chuckled, opening the door to her room. In the past week things had begun to settle, she had gotten used to the new year of school, at least so far, and the new members of the team were beginning to become friendlier. Jonny was still acting like a tool though.

She got dressed into her clothes for school and went to the mess hall, seeing that everyone was already up and glaring at Jonny, even Bobby and Maddy. She sat down next Sam and asked what was going on.

"Someone decided to pull a prank on Bobby last night, unfortunately Bobby didn't find the hologram of Dormammu in his bathroom until 5:45 this morning, and he woke everyone up when he yelled out." Sam yawned, "Why did he wait until the morning after my turn to patrol to do this, couldn't he have done it yesterday?"

"I'm surprised it wasn't you who did that, it sounds kind of like your M.O." Ava said jokingly.

"Hey, if I did that there's no way it would have taken that long to be found. Rookie error on Storm's side." Sam bragged, before taking a mouthful of the sugary cereal he had in front of him.

"I was kidding Sam." She sighed, and got up to grab some food, before quickly running back and saying "And don't think about doing that to prove a point."

* * *

Kraven waited outside Hammerhead's building once more, but this time he was accompanied by Doctor Octopus. He stared at the top floor, knowing that the man was up there, watching. Doc Ock looked at him "You're shaking. Nervous?" He smarmed.

"Shut it." Kraven barked back, and after a taking a moment to compose himself, he walked to the door and opened it, letting Doc Ock in first. The two of them moved quietly through the hall and up the stairs into Hammerhead's office. He was wearing a different suit this time, a blue pinstripe one instead of the black one from before.

"Doctor Octavius, it is nice to meet ya." Hammerhead said with a forced smile, outstretching his hand, which Octavius took with one of his robotic arms.

"The pleasure is mine." Octavius replied, enjoying the look of displeasure on his face.

"Now, if you wish, can you come into that room with me to meet my boss?" Hammerhead asked, although there was a hint of threat in his voice that guaranteed no wasn't an answer. As Kraven began to follow them he turned to him and snarled "You stay here, Kingpin doesn't want to see you."

"I was promised weapons." Kraven gulped, looking into the man's crazed eyes.

"There's some in the third room downstairs, now go before I make you. We'll contact you when we need you again." Hammerhead growled, and Kraven looked at Octavius apologetically before turning away and heading towards the room.

He entered it and saw the motherlode of weapon storage, straight from Hydra itself. He picked up a sniper rifle and looked down the scope, focusing at the zoom and scale. "Uses laser pellets instead of bullets, so can take multiple shots in quick succession without reloading." A man stated, causing Kraven to turn to the doorway.

"Who are you?" Kraven asked, turning the weapon towards him. The man was hidden in the shadows so that he couldn't make out his face, but from his voice Kraven guessed he was middle aged. He too was in a suit, but made it work masterfully. In his hand was a glass of cherry.

"Lower your weapon, sir, no harm will come to you." The man smiled, and Kraven did so. "If I knew that you would be here so early I would have made you a glass too. Got to respect the middle men."

"How did you know about the gun, friend?" Kraven asked, staring him down as he walked forwards.

"Calm down, I helped ship it here, I know all about these weapons. I guess you could call me a tinkerer of sorts when it comes to them. But anyway do you think you can take down those kids with these weapons alone?" He said softly, easing Kraven.

Kraven smiled and lifted the sniper rifle. "There are just five of them, and this will easily kill two. For the third I suppose I could set a trap for and that leaves White Tiger and the Spider-man, whose instincts make close range combat the best bet. Those two will be simple enough if I use some of this stuff to cut at their limbs." Kraven bragged, pointing at some machetes and bayonets in a crate. "I think that a shield should be here too."

The man stared at him and sighed "you must have missed the memo, there are ten of them now."

"Ten?!" Kraven yelled in shock as he jolted his head towards the man. He tried to work some plans out in his head, but they all ended with him defeated once more. And this time he doubted S.H.E.I.L.D. would make the same mistakes. He sighed in defeat, all this for nothing?

"Yes, however, there are ways of getting around such things. How about this, Kingpin will be doing some big shows of power soon enough, and when one is going to happen I'll call and we can sort something out then. They will be too distracted with whatever is going on for them to even realise you're there." The man stopped speaking for a moment and smiled kindly. "So when that happens, you can use the sniper rifle to pick them off one by one."

Kraven nodded, that sounded good, the hunt was back on.

* * *

Doctor Octopus looked at the man sitting on the sofa in front of him. He was the largest person he had ever seen, wearing a white suit that seemed to be twice the size of one a normal man would wear. He had a bald head that gleamed as it reflected the lights from outside. Yet something about him seemed familiar.

Suddenly the man stood up, his head touching the ceiling, and walked over. Despite his size his movements were quiet and refined. He smiled warmly and outstretched his hand, Octavius went to take it with one of his robotic arms, like Hammerhead, but saw something in the man's eyes that told him not to do so. After a moment he gave his own hand and shook. Although he initially assumed the man was fat, upon feeling the force of his grip Octavius realised that all the mass was muscle.

The man released first and said "Good afternoon Doctor, I am the Kingpin as you have probably worked out."

"You're Wilson Fisk." Octavius stated, finally able to put a name to the face.

"Ah, how perceptive, but, then again, I suppose my face has become more recognisable in recent years. Still, we are not here to talk about me, but to talk about you, Doctor Octavius." He smiled, with all the geniality of a tax man.

"Kraven mentioned you want my work." Doctor Octopus muttered, glancing at Hammerhead who stared back calmly.

"No, I want you to work for me, as an inventor of weapons and technology. Similar to how you worked for Mr Osborne, although with more respect than he gave you of course, after all, you are a Doctor, you should be able to work as one, instead of a super villain." Kingpin explained.

"Why do you think I want to go back to being a simple scientist?" Octavius asked, eyeing him up.

"Because, Doctor, you never stopped. That is why you let the title Doctor Octopus stick. You want to be an inventor however with that name you are just unburdened by morality. So I will allow you to continue to be free of such burdens while still being Otto Octavius, and not just another mask." Kingpin said, taking out a cigar and offering one to him "Do you smoke."

"No," Octavius paused, staring at it. This was respect, an employer hiring him naturally through an interview, yes he was not exactly back to normality, but he could be Otto Octavius once more. After a pause he asked "So where is my lab?"

"Good answer, Otto." Kingpin smiled, pulling a picture of a shark down and causing an elevator to appear from behind a fake wall. "You'll find it down there. Just tell Hammerhead here if you need anything."

"Do you want me to do anything now?" Octavius asked

"I do in fact. I want you to build me a robot, similar to the one that attacked the subway all that time ago, and in 3 days at mid-day, I want it aimed at the S.H.E.I.L.D. Helicarrier, we are going to lead a prison break." Kingpin explained, he was tired of S.H.E.I.L.D. now, two of his men arrested in two days was an insult, he would have to make things clear to Fury. He is off limits.

* * *

Sam yawned as he slumped onto the cafeteria table, dropping his bag on the floor in the process. He lazily moved his legs around to kick it under the table and finally grabbed Peters drink and took a swig of it, much to Peter's chagrin.

"Dude, seriously?" Peter shouted, "buy your own drink, the counter is just over there."

"Too tired." Sam muttered in reply, laying his head on the table.

"You know, you really should try to get to bed earlier or wake up a little later if you're like this." Mary Jane advised, causing Ava to chuckle. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, I just remembered a joke." Ava lied.

"I was woken up by a noisy neighbor, that is all." Sam sighed, raising his head slightly.

During this time Luke, Bobby and Danny joined them, holding two trays of food each, which they passed to Ava, Peter and Sam. Maddy turned up last, struggling to balance her second tray, which she awkwardly fumbled to Harry. "Are you sure you didn't want anything, MJ?" She asked as she sat down.

"Nope, I'm fine, I had a light snack earlier and I'll grab a bite on the way home. At the moment I just need to focus on this article." Mary Jane replied kindly, before shaking her head and putting her pen down. "And anyway, it is unfair for you two to have to pick up food for your seniors. Perhaps it should be the reverse." As she said her last comment she nudged Harry, who looked around and nodded.

"Yeah, whatever MJ was saying." He said as he gulped down his food.

"Good, so you're up first tomorrow." Mary Jane smiled, causing Harry to frown and bemoan his situation.

Ava let out a slight chuckle and then leaned over to Peter, who was sitting to her left. "So you're finally able to go back to being Spider-man then?" she asked in a hushed tone.

"Yep, doctors checked me out during gym class. They said the wound had healed way beyond their calculations and they're happy to let me go out again. So I am so excited for after school." Peter whispered in reply, a huge smile etched across his face.

They sat back up, and after brushing a strand of her hair out of her face, she began to eat the lukewarm chicken. It wasn't exactly a good meal, but it was filling and the side salad had been bulging from the plate, which made her feel a bit better about the nutritional value of the food she had just eaten.

Seeing as how she had a few minutes to go, she decided to check the news on her phone, as she kept missing the morning news in the mad rush to get off the Tricarrier. She decided not to use the Daily Bugle app, but instead one from its rival company, which made Peter happy. And anyway, it was less biased, if a little uninformed in comparison.

Flicking through some information about a pop star's drug addiction and who Jonny Storm was seen dating last night, she located the more important information about recent criminal activity and scanned it for possible things to check out after training.

Her thumb stopped at one article, about a violent mutant hate crime, and wondered whether or not looking into that one could offend Bobby, or worse put him in trouble. However upon reading more about it she found the case had already been solved.

She gave a small grin as she realized nothing of interest had happened recently as she scrolled towards the last article, and then her heart stopped. The title jumped out at her, "White tigers killed at central park zoo – police suspect escaped super villain."

She stared at the article and after much internal deliberation, selected it and read on. The words she most dreaded seemed to turn up throughout, and as she finished she seemed to have a full understanding of what had happened.

Kraven had broken out of a high security prison and returned to New York, the prison, worried about its reputation, kept things hushed up for about a week, allowing him to do whatever he wanted during that time. As it turned out, what he wanted to do was hunt some animals and send a message to the team. He wanted to announce his return.

But why was he even in that prison, he was supposed to be on the Tricarrier. And if he had to be transferred, for whatever stupid reason, why wasn't she told. As she began to grow more and more confused and angry she felt something behind her thoughts, a deep growl and cold stare. Taking a few calming breathes she mentally created a cage for the tiger and locked it up deeper within her mind.

And then it let out a scream, which caused her thoughts to go haywire, she questioned if it was Fury's fault, what to do about it, who to punish, who to hurt and who to hunt all at the same time, being answered by a variety of suggestions, all using her own voice. She felt someone touch her shoulder and speak to her, but she couldn't focus on their words no matter how she tried.

Desperately she looked for a single train of thoughts and began to follow a river of serenity; however another thought, which spoke in legion with all of her friends' voices, warned her against it. As she began to focus less on the river she swore that it was instead a crazed rapid. Following that voice instead her mind cleared, and she felt as though the tiger left her.

She regained focus on what was going on in the real world and saw Peter talking to her, although she could still not process the words. Unable to properly answer, she picked up her phone and passed it over to him, watching as he read. When he finished he gave a small, sad look of understanding.

Despite her worries, despite her fears, she would have to face Kraven again, and she would have to keep the tiger under control. She could only hope that it would not get any stronger.

##########

_Sorry this chapter took so long, I found that once I had finished it I was unsatisfied and so rewrote a few portions... then I moved to new accommodation and had no internet so to upload the finished version. Well anyway I finally got it sorted and here it is... for anyone who remembers this fan fic._

_Yeah, this was another long chapter, one of the other reasons it took so long, however this and the next few are important for building the character interactions so that when the plot comes a calling they have known one another long enough for it to be worthwhile. _

_It seems that Ultimate Spider-man will be back up this weekend and I'm interested to see what they'll do, seeing as how it seems Spider-man will be joining the Avengers next season. Ultimately due to that reason I have had to put a branch in where the story splits from the actual episodes. At the moment all episodes up to 'Parent Trap' are part of it, however I am unsure about whether that episode will be, as it may lead to issues in my plans..._

_I can't make any promises on when chapter 3 will be released, a new year of Uni will lead to me having less time, however I also seem to have had more motivation recently and so have reached act 3 of my first draft of it at least. So lets say late October/November, about when I should have internet permanently and not have to use the campus'. _

_See ya._


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